


Old Haunts

by RosieTheRo



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Morbid Humor, Past Violence, dead/undead characters, monster au, period-typical xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-03 12:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10967100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieTheRo/pseuds/RosieTheRo
Summary: Alfred goes along with a stupid dare and visits the old abandoned house on the edge of town by himself, only to find much more history there than he could have ever imagined.





	1. Chapter 1

It was a dark and stormy night, because _of course_ it was, and Alfred was staring up at the huge, ancient house sitting outside of town, shivering because it was early evening in late October and _not_ because he was scared, damn it!

 _Oh, who am I kidding?_ he thought to himself, grimacing up at the old house. Certainly not Gilbert, that was for sure.

Alfred didn’t really know the history of the old house on the edge of town. As far as he knew, no one did. It had been there basically since the city was founded, apparently an important historical landmark, albeit one left in severe disrepair. With its peeled paint, boarded up windows, missing roof shingles, and rusted gate, it seemed ready to topple over any minute.

Even though he didn’t know anything about the house’s history, Alfred had heard about it plenty of times. How could he not? Every October, stories would start circulating around campus about hauntings, possessions, and just the general creepiness that supposedly went on in and around the old house. One of Alfred’s classmates said that his cousin’s friend had found animal corpses near the house, ripped to shreds, only to have another classmate butt in and swear up and down that the animals weren’t torn up, but completely drained of blood. Once while he was getting lunch in the student cafeteria, Alfred stood in line next to someone who was excitedly telling her friend over the phone that she had heard about voices echoing out from the house, carried downhill by the wind on quiet nights. While he was sitting in the dorm commons one evening, trying to focus on his video game and not the conversation behind him, he overheard a very enthusiastic freshman talk about his older brother who had climbed the house’s rusty fence, then felt an ice-cold hand grab his shoulder and spin him around, only to see that there was no one else there.

That was when Gilbert noticed something was up, glancing casually over at his dorm mate and seeing Alfred looking wide-eyed at the TV, hands tense as they gripped his controller.

“What’s up, Al, you scared?”

“No,” Alfred had insisted, lying right through his teeth.

Alfred wasn’t sure he believed these stories about the house, but that didn’t stop him from being terrified of them. The thought that things with teeth and claws, things that should be dead but weren’t, things that cared little for the laws of nature, could be just a short walk away from his campus made him uneasy. Who could blame him, really?

And Gilbert, sadistic bastard that he was, grinned wider and replied, “So you wouldn’t mind going in there and getting some video then, right?”

Well, shit.

Gilbert didn’t even come with him.

“Nah, sorry dude,” he’d smirked, laying on his bed while Alfred stood in the door, pulling on his jacket. “I’ve got _tons_ of homework to do tonight.”

He was playing that stupid cookie game. Alfred could see his laptop easily over his shoulder.

Asshole.

But, whatever, Alfred had decided, putting on a brave face and marching off campus and towards the edge of town, braced against the chilly fall breeze. _I’ll show him,_ he’d thought. _I’m gonna get the best goddamned video out of this house! Let’s see Gil laugh when I’ve won an Oscar for this shit!_

He was less confident by the time he was standing at the foot of the hill, flashlight in one hand and his phone in the other, pretending his legs weren’t shaking as he stared up at the terrifying old house which was probably going to kill him as soon as he set foot inside of the damn thing.  
It was windy that night, loudly rustling the dry leaves that still clung to their branches. That was probably a good thing. Alfred wasn’t sure he’d have the nerve to take another step if he actually _did_ hear voices right then.

So, take another step he did. Then another, and another, until he was right up against the rusty, wrought-iron gate. The fence wrapped around the base of the entire hill, reaching a few inches above Alfred’s head and tipped with spiked ends that had rusted over time. The gate was even taller, nearly twice his height and flanked by old, moss-covered statues that seemed to be lions. Alfred’s eyes scanned across the top of the gate, and he realized there was a name cut out of the iron. He squinted in the dim grey light, trying to make out the old letters.

GERHARDT

 _Sounds German,_ he thought, then snorted with a sardonic laugh. _Well, Gil will be happy to know his heritage took part in scaring the shit out of me._

He looked back down and found the gate shut, the old lock rusted in place. On the one hand, he could go home right now, tell Gilbert the place was locked and _clearly_ about to collapse under its own weight.

But, on the other hand, Gilbert would pester him about it until graduation and beyond, and he would _never_ hear the end of it.

 _Welp,_ he figured, swallowing a lump in his throat and putting his phone and flashlight in his back pockets. _If I have to suffer, better get it over and done with now, right?_

No, not right.

But he grabbed the bars of the gate and started to climb up it anyway.

He found footholds on horizontal bars crossing across the gate, and once he was high enough, gripped the mossy old lions to get enough leverage to haul himself up and over the gate. He fumbled clumsily for a moment, balancing on top of the name GERHARDT, before dropping down heavily, stumbling on his feet.

No going back now.

Something that he was painfully aware of as he walked up the steep hill, following the winding gravel path up to the top. He pulled his flashlight out again, pretending his knees didn’t feel like jelly as he got closer and closer to the decrepit old house. It was a behemoth, towering over the hill and rising above the treetops. Despite its height, the house was thin and spindly-looking, with tall triangular roof tops and long windows. An old weather vane, shaped like an eagle, spun slowly on the roof, and the whole building seemed to creak and sway in the windy night.

Alfred stood a few paces from the porch, gazing up at the crooked old house and swallowing his fear. His gaze dropped to the porch itself, eyeing the rotting wood dubiously as he stepped forward. The stairs creaked under foot, and he nearly jumped out of skin when something small and furry scampered out from the porch and towards the trees.

 _Fucking squirrels,_ he cursed to himself, embarrassed that his heart was already racing. He turned back to the door, with its peeling paint and a lion-shaped knocker, and apprehensively gripped the brass knob in his sweaty hand.

He turned it, and the door opened.

_Shit. Unlocked._

He actually shivered as the door swung inward, letting out a loud, high creaking noise. No door that makes that awful a sound could ever lead to anything good.

Alfred stepped into the house anyway, flicking on his flashlight and peering apprehensively into the gloom.

He was standing in an open foyer, a set of stairs ahead of him leading up to the top two floors and doorways on either side leading into the other rooms. He scanned his flashlight around, peering down each way. On his left was what looked like a dining hall, and to the right appeared to be a parlor. 

The place was freezing, the cold October air piercing through the walls and making Alfred shiver violently. _Just a few minutes of footage,_ he told himself determinedly, pulling his jacket tighter around himself.

Nervously, he closed the door as quietly as he could behind him, wincing as it clicked shut. He fished his phone out of his back pocket, clumsily switching on the camera and hitting record.

“A-alright,” he said, grimacing as he stuttered and hoping he’d be able to edit that out before he showed this to Gilbert. “So, here’s the foyer.”

He scanned his flashlight, following the beam with his phone as it passed over the stairs, heading to the right first.

“I think this is a living room,” he said, moving his phone and flashlight across the space. A set of mismatched furniture filled the room, from an antique, dark red, velvet couch, to a surprisingly modern-looking loveseat in one corner. He wondered if the town’s historical society had brought them in to make the place look nicer and more appealing to visitors. Was this place even open to visitors? He honestly didn’t know.

His eyes drifted up to the paintings. They were mostly landscapes, places he didn’t recognize. He stepped closer to one, showing an orange sunset over a misty grey beach, holding up his phone to get some footage of it.

“Weird that there aren’t any of the family,” he muttered, more to himself than the phone. Maybe they were somewhere else in the house.

He turned and aimed his flashlight at the opposite wall, yelping in fear and stumbling back as a huge, jagged shadow stretched across the ceiling, reaching its long, sharp claws towards him. His phone fell from his hands as his back hit the wall and he stared up in fear, his light landing on the stuffed head of a stag mounted on the opposite wall, its antlers casting warped shadows above it.

Alfred stared a moment, then cursed and bent to pick up his phone. His heart was still thudding in his chest as he switched the camera back on, lifting it up to face the stag.

“You’d’ve loved this, Gil,” he said wryly. “Fucking Bambi here nearly gave me a heart-attack.”

He pocketed his phone for the time being, heading across the room to the doorway opposite doorway. He chuckled to himself as he walked. _That was pretty funny,_ he thought.

His foot bumped into something on the floor and he paused, aiming his flashlight down. There was another painting leaning against the wall, back facing out. He knelt down, tilting the painting gently and finding a faded ink inscription on the back, written in both German and English.

LORD AND LADY GERHARDT, JUNE 17, 1867

Curious, Alfred flipped the painting over, wondering if he’d finally get a look at some members of the Gerhardt family. His stomach sank as the flashlight landed on the painting.

Lord and Lady Gerhardt were sitting in adjacent chairs against a curtain back drop, dressed in rather extravagant and colorful clothes. Their faces were indistinguishable, the paint chipped and scraped, leaving blank canvas in its place. Alfred realized with a lurch that this had to be intentional.

He whipped out his phone and quickly took a picture of the inscription on the back. Maybe he could do more research on this, find out if anyone would have had a grudge against the family.  
He didn’t want to consider any alternatives, especially the supernatural ones.

He flipped the painting around one last time, looking at the front again, and noticed something he hadn’t the first time. Standing behind Lord Gerhardt was a teenage boy, his posture stiff and held at attention. Alfred peered closer. Was he a servant maybe? He was far less detailed than either the lord or lady, his clothes plain and his face not very defined. He was small and scrawny-looking, with curly blond hair and what may have been freckles, or were possibly dirt spots on the painting.

On a whim, he snapped a photo of the front of the painting too. If nothing else, maybe he could creep out Gilbert with it.

He left the painting where he found it and stood up, carefully treading through the doorway and swinging his light around the new room.

A kitchen, it looked like, with white tile floors and counter tops, and a grated fireplace on one side. Like the living room, Alfred was surprised to find an array of more modern objects about, like the relatively new looking skillet and pan hanging from one wall.

“Wouldn’t they go for accuracy?” he mumbled absentmindedly, scanning his phone around the kitchen to record everything. “What kind of historical society fills an old house with modern stuff?”

He stepped carefully through the kitchen, getting a quick shot of everything he could, and noticed something odd. Despite the house being freezing, the air around him was starting to feel warm. Nervously, he glanced at the fireplace and took a step closer, peering between the grating. There was a faint warmth radiating from it, and he could see orange embers sitting among the ashes.

“Shit,” he hissed, taking a couple steps back.

Someone else had been in here.

Or, they were still in here.

With him.

 _Alright, fuck this,_ he thought, pocketing his phone and hurrying across the kitchen, into the attached dining room. Never mind the ghosts and monsters, what if squatters lived here, or this was somewhere drug deals went down? _That,_ at least, was a reasonable excuse to get the hell out of there without Gilbert teasing him about being scared of spooky stories. Surely, even Gil had the sense not to stick around when a very real person could have a very real weapon, and be very pissed about some college kid intruding on their turf.

Alfred barely took in the large wooden table with four mismatched chairs around it as he slipped through the dining room, turning and looping back round towards the front foyer, switching his flashlight off and shoving it in his pocket, trying to be as inconspicuous as he could. He kept his eyes on his feet, trying to avoid debris in the dark, when he realized the floor under him was actually quite clean. Come to think of it, everything had been fairly clean. He hadn’t even seen any dust on the old paintings.

That thought did not ease his nerves at all, and he picked up the pace, looking up as he reached the front foyer and reaching out to grab the doorknob.

Then he froze.

Someone was standing in front of the door.

Someone small, thin, and frail looking, with pallid skin and dressed in loose, white garments. He was facing the door, back to Alfred, with his head hanging low and arms limp at his sides, bare feet right in front of the threshold.

Alfred gaped at the boy, unable to speak and barely able to breathe. His brain felt like it had short-circuited, needing desperately to react to what he was seeing yet incapable of coming up with any response.

Even as the boy lifted his head, achingly slowly, Alfred failed to do anything but stare, his eyes growing wider as the boy’s head began to turn. And turn. And turn, until the boy was looking directly at him, his body still facing forwards and his head twisted all the way around.

His hair was curly and grey, falling over the right side of his face and half-covering what appeared to be an empty eye socket. His remaining eye was open wide, pale purple in color and surrounded by dark, heavy shadows. He stared back at Alfred, looking almost as surprised as he was to see him there.

Alfred made a tiny, choked noise in his throat.

The boy smiled, almost shyly. The small smile grew wider, looking friendly in a way, even welcoming.

Then, the corners of his lips stretched across his cheeks, almost up to his ears, his mouth opening and black, thick fluid spilling past his lips.

Alfred would have never believed he could make so high-pitch a sound if he hadn’t heard it coming from his own throat. His brain finally caught up with what he was seeing and he bolted, sprinting back towards the stairs in a blind panic and tearing up them three at a time, desperate to get away from the thing blocking the front door.

He could have sworn he heard laughter as he shot upstairs, shrill and cackling, sounding like it was coming from right behind him. He risked a glance over his shoulder and caught wide, sharp-toothed smile centimeters away from his face, accompanied by a pair of vividly glowing green eyes and shiny, black horns curving around them. He shrieked again and practically fell up the rest of the stairs, colliding with the opposite wall and he felt a gust of wind hit him, and what sounded like large wings flapping.

Panting for breath, he looked down the second-floor hallway, searching for an escape route, only to see a massive creature at the other end of the hall, the size of a horse and covered in thick brown fur, its mouth hanging open, exposing fangs dripping with saliva, yellow eyes gleaming in the dark. Without hesitation, he bolted up the next set of stairs, scrambling up to the top floor.

Heart pounding and lungs heaving, Alfred stumbled onto the landing and slipped, falling heavily on his side. A little dazed, he opened his eyes and saw a pair of black shoes in front of him. His eyes darted up, finding another pale, unnatural face grinning down at him, sharp teeth bared and eyes flashing red behind a pair of glasses.

Panic and fear mounting, Alfred sprung to his feet and sprinted in the other direction. There, he saw his exit, one of the tall, thin windows mounted at the end of the hall, half-covered by wooden boards. Driven by desperation, he tore down the hall and aimed right for the window.

“Wait-!”

He felt something grab hold of his jacket and pull him back. Ignoring the voice, not even really hearing it in his panic, he tore off the jacket and kept running, bowing and bracing his shoulder to break through the wooden boards

“No, don’t-!”

He burst through the window in a shower of splintered wood, leaping from the third floor into the cold October air. For a second, he stared blankly out across the hillside, seeing the town in the distance over the treetops, glowing yellow and welcoming, and he wished he was in his dorm room curled up in his favorite old blanket with some leftover pizza right now.

He hit the ground feet first and buckled, pain shooting up his right leg as a sickening _crack!_ filled the air. His scream was cut off as he rolled and his head hit the earth, knocking him out completely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning: there's some vague violence/abuse and explicit character death in this chapter, just a heads-up. 
> 
> Also, a historical note: many German families settled in Latvia during the Northern Crusades and developed into the Baltic-German nobility class, with native Latvians generally making up the peasant population. So, if you're curious why Raivis is living with a German family, there you go.

It was supposed to be his ticket out of here. After all, he was going to _America,_ where anyone who worked hard enough could make their own life, without the binds of servitude and classism, where even the poorest little peasant boy could live free and happy.

In retrospect, Raivis felt awfully foolish for believing any of that.

Lord and Lady Gerhardt liked to remind him all the time how generous they were, what kind, caring souls they were for taking in that poor peasant boy, orphaned by a sickness that killed the rest of his family. He should be grateful, they’d remind him, that he had been welcomed into such a wealthy home, and made a part of such a prestigious family. Perhaps Raivis would have been grateful, if they actually had treated him like a member of the family, and not an unpaid servant who they only seemed to keep around because they liked having someone to shout at. Even the rest of the serving staff wrinkled their noses and sneered at him, this dirty, uneducated farm boy who had sullied their masters’ beautiful home.

Sometimes, Raivis wished they would have left him on the farm. At least then he’d have his dignity, tending to his family’s little plot of land by himself and making his own ends meet. A lonely life, certainly, but far preferable to hours of miserable work and no pay, small meals, and getting screamed at on a daily basis whenever Lord Gerhardt’s infamously short temper suddenly snapped.

He was scrubbing the kitchen tile and trying to pretend he wasn’t faint with hunger when he heard the news, gossiped between two of the older maids. Lord Gerhardt was looking to move to America to expand his steel refinery business, and planned to bring a troupe of servants with him when he went. 

Uneducated though he was, even Raivis knew about America, having eavesdropped on conversations with visiting friends and business partners, hearing stories about the land of infinite opportunity, where buildings touched the sky itself and any man could make his own living on his own terms.

The perfect place for a boy, fed up with his life of servitude, to run away and find a respectable job, grow up strong and tall, and make his own mark on the world.

Raivis was on his best behavior for months. He stopped complaining about not getting meals, took the angry shouts and strikes from Lord Gerhardt without objection, and worked until his feeble body ached to do the best damn job he could.

His hard work paid off, and by some miracle, he found himself boarding the ship for America with a hand-picked group of servants. The trip was as miserable as life in the Gerhardts’ home was, suffering frigid below-deck quarters and swallowing his nausea as the ocean pitched and rocked the ship, but he endured. While Lord and Lady Gerhardt sat comfortably in their furnished cabin, he’d pull his thin blanket tighter around himself and think of what awaited him; silk suits and brass buttons, streets lined with shops, their windows filled with delicious pastries and luscious meats, and a home of his own, where he could live his new life, peaceful and happy.

His new life ended only about two weeks after they arrived at port.

The trip inland began as a disaster. Papers at the immigration office were mixed up, making the whole group lose a day, which Raivis spent worrying that’d he’d be rejected and sent back across the sea. Fortunately, he and everyone else was eventually approved, and a caravan of brand new, shiny black carriages carried them out of the city. The trip was supposed to take three days, but due to hot weather and poor map reading, took up most of the first week. All the way back in the fourth carriage, Raivis could hear Lord Gerhardt’s voice booming in rage as he screamed obscenities at the coachman, his servants, the horses, and his own wife. More than once, when they stopped to let the horses rest in the scorching summer, Raivis considered running away right then and there, stealing a suitcase and sprinting back to the last town they passed. Then, he’d glance up at the sun, wipe the sweat off the back of his neck, and realized he’d never make it that far on foot. He’d have to stay, just a little longer, just enough to snatch some spare coins to buy his way back into the big city.

_Be patient,_ he’d tell himself, sitting squished between two massive trunks, the seat bouncing beneath him as the carriage trundled down the dirt road. _The chance will come._

Even Raivis had to admit, the new Gerhardt mansion was a beautiful home. Tall, towering, even somewhat intimidating, with a wrought iron gate flanked by stone lions, and a shining brass eagle weather vane on top. Raivis, of course, got the smallest, most uncomfortable corner of the large house to call his bedroom, crammed into the attic, but he knew it would not be for much longer. He had a steadily growing collection of coins in a sock hidden under his pillow, slipped from coat pockets or snuck out of grocery money. He felt somewhat guilty for stealing, but the thought of living with the Gerhardts any longer made him feel much worse. Besides, he could easily pay the money back once he was a wealthy man. It made him smile to think about it, how he would appear on the Gerhardts’ doorstep, older and significantly taller, and return the borrowed change, letting them see what became of the useless peasant boy they’d bossed around all those years ago.

He never got the chance.

It wasn’t even the sock full of stolen coins that got him into trouble. He was just in the wrong place at a very wrong time, taking Lord Gerhardt’s tray away after he had finished his afternoon tea. Gerhardt was on the phone, his face turning red with anger. Raivis overheard something along the lines of “I will be canceling your contract” on the other end of the line, and decided it was time to get out of Gerhardt’s office.

He hurriedly loaded up the tray, flinching and heading towards the door as Lord Gerhardt sprang up out of his seat and started screaming into the phone. He kept his head down, hoping to let the man burn himself out, but unwittingly stepped into Gerhardt’s line of sight.

The strange thing was, he never even felt the granite paperweight collide with the side of his head. He was just suddenly standing over the limp body of a boy, bleeding out of the right side of his head, lying motionless on the office rug among the shattered remains of a china tea set, and Lord Gerhardt was screaming down the hall for his servants to come help him.

It was just as the servants had started wrapping the body up in the rug, Lord Gerhardt standing by nervously and dabbing his sweaty face with a handkerchief, that Raivis realized it was his own body being shoved and lugged around.

Head lost in a thick daze of shock, he watched the servants drag the rolled-up rug out of the office and down the hall, Gerhardt running anxiously behind them. No one seemed to notice him standing there at all, so Raivis followed them, feeling inexplicably light and floaty, not quite feeling the carpet beneath his feet. One of the servants hurriedly slammed a door shut behind them, and Raivis didn’t even notice that he walked right through it as he trailed after them.

He followed them out the back door, down the hill, to the edge of the garden, where the groundskeeper was already digging madly into the dirt. He watched, his brain feeling thick and slow, not quite registering the hole growing bigger, soon deep enough to dump the rolled-up rug into, and smother it with dirt and grass.

He didn’t follow Gerhardt and the servants back up to the house. He stayed there, at the bottom of the hill, not noticing the sky turn dark or the air turn chilly, staring unblinking at the little mound of earth that covered the body.

His body.

At some point during the night, Raivis realized that he was dead.

It was close to dawn when the shock began to fade. The thick fog in Raivis’s head cleared, slowly but steadily, burning away as an overwhelming anger began to take root.

_This_ was where his life ended? Beaten to death and dumped in a shallow grave in the backyard!? After everything he’d endured, everything he’d lived through, _this was it?!_

He didn’t even know if he had a voice anymore, but the scream welling up from his chest could not be stopped. His knees buckled and his body shook, his fingers gripping his own hair hard enough it should have hurt as he screamed, sobbed, cursed, and damned the house, damned the family, damned the cowards who had helped hide his body without thinking twice about it. Black fluid dripped down his cheeks, and it could have been tears, it could have been blood from his wounded eye, but he did not care, stamping his feet and wailing into the night, consumed by grief and rage.

The sun was up by the time he’d exhausted himself. He was left kneeling in the grass, unable to feel the dew against his legs as he quietly shook, voice coming out in choked hiccups and short sobs. It was only then that he noticed the sounds behind him, or hurried footsteps and shouting voices, and glanced over his shoulder, his remaining eye widening at what he saw.

Every window in the mansion was shattered, broken glass littering the ground around it, the serving staff hurrying in a panic to clean it all up while Lord Gerhardt stood by, finally stunned into silence it seemed.

Shakily, Raivis stood and climbed back up the hill, curious despite himself about what on Earth had happened to the house. He found himself walking through the wall into the kitchen, stepping harmlessly on the broken glass as servants rushed around, passing right through him more than once.

Then he overheard the two older maids again, gossiping as they always had, in their own little corner of the kitchen.

“Has anyone figured out what those noises were yet?”

“Mercy no, but it sounded like some poor creature was being tortured to death out there!”

“Perhaps a coyote? Locals say they make awful sounds at night.”

“I cannot imagine those sounds would be awful enough to shatter windows…”

The pair bustled off, passing through Raivis and shivering slightly as they left, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He turned and looked out over the kitchen, littered with shattered glass, and the servants picking their way through the mess.

_Did… did I do this?_

There was only one way to find out.

He wandered through the house, passing through walls and floating up stairways without problem, feeling strange and weightless. He eventually found Lord Gerhardt up in his office, the floor bare where the rug had been, as he was hurriedly making phone calls to get someone to replace the windows.

Anger welled in his chest as Raivis watched him, no grief on the man’s face, no remorse for the boy whose life he’d ended, all he cared about was making sure the windows were fixed before his business partners arrived the following week. His hands shook and curled into fists as the glared at Gerhardt, and the rage crept up his throat like vomit, hot and painful.

His eyes darted over to the lamp on Gerhardt’s desk, and it shattered instantly.

Raivis watched him scream and jump, clutching his chest and panting for breath, staring in shock at the splintered glass and ceramic littering his desk. Slowly, a smile crept across Raivis’s lips, a sick sense of satisfaction filling him at the frightened look on Gerhardt’s face. The anger still burned in his throat, and he moved his eyes to the taxidermy boar’s head on the wall, grinning as it’s lower jaw snapped off and fell to the ground, its glass eyes popping out of its skull.

Gerhardt stumbled to get up and Raivis turned his attention to the chair, laughing as it jerked forwards and threw Gerhardt against the desk, pinning him there as he scrambled and called for help.

_Yes, yes!_ Raivis thought viciously, expression turning manic as the desk and chair rattled, drawers sliding open and closed. _How do you like it?! How does it feel to be scared?!_

A trio of servants ran in, answering Gerhardt’s call, and the door slammed shut behind them, the three of them crowding together as the bookshelves started shaking. Raivis laughed again, practically giggling with glee, losing focus for a moment as Gerhardt shoved himself away from the desk and sprinted at the door, preparing to throw himself against it. It swung open just before he hit it and he barreled out into the hallway, colliding face-first with the floor, and Raivis howled with laughter, floating in mid-air as he doubled over, clutching his ribs.

The servants practically stampeded over Gerhardt in their rush to get out of the room and Raivis gleefully followed, watching on in delight as Gerhardt tried to stand up while the rug underneath him kept sliding backwards. He finally got his feet under him and sprinted down the hall, arms covering his face as the paintings and portraits tore apart, showering him with ripped canvas and splintered frames.

He could hear voices in the rest of the house, calling out and asking what was wrong, what were those noises, why was someone laughing? Raivis grinned with delight, flying after Gerhardt as he fled downstairs and bringing the destruction with him, making doors unhinge, pipes burst in the walls, furniture splinter, and appliances throw themselves across the room. Soon, the rest of the house was in a panic, dodging falling lights and uprooting floorboards in their rush to get out, and Raivis laughed harder than he had in his entire life, darting through walls and watching the chaos unfold, reveling in instilling the same fear and misery he’d felt for so long.

He realized very suddenly that the frightened screaming had stopped and paused, objects falling out of the air where they’d been floating as he looked around. The room he’d wound up in, the parlor, was empty. He passed through the walls, checking the kitchen, dining room, den, and downstairs offices and found no one.

Then, he heard the voices from outside and grinned again, following the panicked shouts to the front of the house where the serving staff was piling into the two carriages they had while trying to wrangle the panicked horses, Lord and Lady Gerhardt already in a third carriage and speeding towards the front gate. Seeing the chance, Raivis shot after the carriage, enjoying their panicked shrieks as the bushes lining the path tore themselves from the earth and flew towards the carriage. Lord Gerhardt bellowed at their single horse and sent it speeding through the rattling gates, bushes and dirt-covered roots trailing behind the carriage.

Raivis was practically cackling as he sped down towards the gate, eager to give chase, perhaps topple a tree or two or make the road crack beneath them-

He was stopped suddenly as he reached the line of the gate, grunting as he slammed into some invisible force that kept him from passing any further. Baffled, he pressed his hands against the unseen thing, feeling as solid as rock. He stared through the invisible wall, watching the Gerhardts’ carriage vanish down the road as it sped away, jumping as the other two carriages passed right through him, horses taking them down the path.

His glee faded, and something fearful welled up in his chest.

_It can’t be,_ he thought, hands scrambling across the invisible plane, searching for a hole, a crack, some kind of weak point he could break through. He rose into the air, searching manically and finding nothing but the smooth, unseen barrier.

_I-it can’t go all the way up, right?_

He flew higher, shaking with dread as the barrier curved inward, reaching the height of the house before sloping back down the other side, not a gap to be found.

He was panicking as he darted downward, passing through the ground and mentally begging, _Please, oh please, oh please…._

Though he passed through the dirt and rock with ease, he was stopped short when he hit the same force at the depth of the house’s basement, as solid and sturdy as it was above ground.

The sun set, rose, and set again as Raivis scrambled across the entire surface of the invisible barrier, searching every inch for some give or weak spot, and finding none. He pounded his fists against it, kicked, scratched, and threw his body at it, wailing, “It’s not fair!” for hours on end.  
It was days before he sank back into the house, falling through the roof and top floors, landing softly in the middle of the foyer. He hugged his knees and trembled, looking out across the ruined walls, destroyed furniture, and shattered glass he’d left behind. Somewhere, water was trickling, probably from when he’d ripped the sink out of the wall and hurled it out the window.

He was alone now. Alone in this destroyed, empty, awful house, the house everyone else had managed to escape.

No. No, it was not fair.

He cried, quiet and muffled against his knees, and knew that this was all he had now.


	3. Chapter 3

Alfred felt like he’d been hit by a bus.

His head hurt, his legs hurt, and he wasn’t even sure if he was actually conscious at the moment.

“I shouldn’t have blocked the door…”

Was someone talking?

“…going to be okay?…oh god, oh god…”

The voice was small and trembling. Whoever it was sounded scared.

Alfred’s head was throbbing, but he tried to focus.

“…not your fault…he’s going to be fine…”

That was another voice, older sounding than the first, with a smooth, almost melodic accent. Subconsciously, Alfred tilted his head, trying to hear better, and a jolt of pain shot up his neck and the back of his skull. He groaned, his face screwing up, and struggled to remember why he was aching so much.

He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he was in danger.

“He’s waking up!”

The voice was clearer now, still shaky, but he could focus enough to hear it properly.

He could hear footsteps too, approaching him, and felt the surface beneath him dip as someone leaned over him.

_Oh… I’m in a bed…_

“Can you hear me?”

It was the smooth voice, coming from just above him. Something frigid touched his arm, and it took Alfred a second to realize it was a hand. God, it felt like someone had stuck their hand in a freezer, it was so cold.

“Can you speak?”

“…hurts,” he managed to grunt, trying to muster the strength to open his eyes.

“I’m sure it does,” the voice replied, sounding sardonic, but not unsympathetic. “We think your ankle may be broken, and you hit your head when you fell.”

…Fell? Did he fall?

Wait, wasn’t there a window…?

“We brought you inside to rest up. Here, do you feel nauseous at all?”

“Nng… no?”

“Hm, you probably don’t have a concussion then, that’s good…”

The voice said “we.” Who else was there?

Despite his aching head, Alfred forced his eyes open, and found himself squinting up at a blurry, pale blob. Something orange was flickering in his periphery, a fire maybe?

He blinked several times, trying to clear his vision, and the blob shifted out of sight.

“Oh, your glasses, of course!” the voice said, as the pale shape came back into view. “Believe me, I know how disorienting it is to be without these. They’re a little bent though…”

He felt the cold hands on his face and flinched reflexively, grunting as his glasses slid onto his nose. They felt crooked, and weren’t sitting on his ears right, but at least he could see now.

He blinked again, and focused on the man hovering above him.

He was incredibly pale, almost grey-skinned, with high cheekbones and short, straight hair, neatly trimmed and almost as pale as his face. His brows furrowed, he peered down at Alfred through a pair of round glasses, his red eyes scrutinizing, yet concerned.

Alfred suddenly realized he recognized those eyes. They’d been staring down at him along with a wicked, sharp-toothed smile, which sent him sprinting down the hallway and out a window.

_“Shit!”_

Alfred sprang off the bed, throwing himself over the side and leaping to his feet. Or, he tried to rather. As soon as his right foot hit the floor, pain shot up his leg like a lightning bolt and he screamed, collapsing with a heavy _thud_ that made him dizzy all over again. He heard a yelp from the other side of the room but didn’t care, whipping his head around and searching for an escape. He spotted a door, standing ajar maybe ten feet or so away, and scrambled across the floor, ignoring the pain in his ankle.

“W-wait!”

He heard footsteps approaching and rolled on his back, kicking with his left leg and narrowly missing the pale man’s shins. “Get away from me!”

Much to his surprise, the man stopped, lifting his hands and holding them up and open.

“Alright, alright,” he said quickly, taking a couple steps back. “It’s okay, calm down now. I know you must be startled-”

“Fuck _yes_ , I’m startled!” Alfred yelled back, scooting backwards on his hands. “What the hell’s going on here?!”

He heard a small, frightened noise and glanced past the pale man. He saw another pale figure, smaller and slighter, standing by a dresser lined with large, lit candles. It was the boy from downstairs, he realized with a jolt, watching him with one eye and his small hands curled up over his mouth, expression tight and anxious. Alfred noticed with a sinking feeling that, where the candle light hit the boy, his body seemed semi-transparent.

“Please, just try to stay calm,” the pale man said, his voice firm. Alfred’s eyes snapped back to him. “You’re already hurt, you might make it worse if you move too much.”

“What’s going on?” Alfred repeated, voice quieter but still shaky. “What… who are you people?”

“My name is Eduard,” the man said. He lowered his hands, but didn’t move forward. “And this is Raivis.”

He gestured to the boy behind him and Alfred once again glanced at him. The boy, Raivis, flinched slightly as they made eye contact, and huddled closer to the dresser. Alfred watched dumbfounded as his shoulder and part of his arm passed right through the solid wood.

Somehow, he remembered how his mouth worked, and mumbled, “Hey, uh… are you a… ghost?”

The boy stood stiff for a second, and then nodded wordlessly.

Alfred blinked slowly, and looked back up at Eduard. “And you’re…?”

“…a vampire,” he replied after hesitating a moment, his shoulders slumping. “But, we won’t hurt you-”

Something snapped into place in Alfred’s brain.

“Fuck you, you won’t hurt me!” he yelled. Eduard took another step back and Raivis slipped further into the dresser. “You chased me out of a goddamned window!”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Eduard said firmly. “And I tried to stop you, didn’t I?”

Alfred remembered a hand grabbing his jacket. Maybe that hadn’t been some monster trying to drag him back and eat him.

Before he could reply, something bright green flashed in the center of the room and he screamed again, shoving himself backwards until he hit the corner between the bed and the wall. He stared openmouthed at the circle of vivid green fire that had suddenly appeared in the floor, his jaw dropping further when a humanoid figure suddenly rose from the flames.

“I heard something, is he awake?”

Another young man, with chin-length blond hair and eyes as vivid green as the fire he’d just emerged from. Shiny black horns curved from behind his pointed ears, along with bat-like wings sprouting from his shoulder blades, and a spade-tipped tail swaying behind him.

Eduard gave him a dry look as the green fire flickered out and vanished. “Yes, he is very much awake, Feliks, and none too happy about the situation.”

The winged newcomer, Feliks, blinked and turned to face Alfred, huddled against the wall and staring up at him in terror. “Oh. Uh, oops.”

He offered what was probably supposed to be a friendly smile, but the sight of sharp fangs in his mouth just set Alfred more on edge. “Sooo, how you feeling, dude?”

Alfred didn’t answer, just dug his nails deeper into the floorboard.

Feliks shifted awkwardly on his heels. “I’ll uh… I’ll go help out Toris.”

With that, the flames erupted around him again and he sank back into the floor and out of sight.

Eduard sighed, sounding annoyed. “I swear, he forgets doors even exist sometimes.”

Alfred made a choked noise. “Will someone please tell me _what in the blue hell is going on?!”_

“M-maybe you get back on the bed first,” Raivis piped up, voice stuttering. “You might hurt yourself.”

“He’s right,” Eduard added. “Now, do you think you can keep calm enough for me to help you up?”

Alfred was quiet for a moment, and then nodded stiffly.

Eduard looked pleased, and a little relieved. “Alright.”

He stepped closer and Alfred resisted the urge to crawl away screaming again. Raivis stepped out from the dresser, watching them carefully, still wringing his hands together.

“Here, lean on me,” Eduard said patiently, kneeling down. Alfred let him grab his wrist and sling it over his shoulder, and shivered. The rest of Eduard’s body felt as cold as his hands did.

“Now, just take it easy, I’ll help you up… there we go.”

Alfred wobbled on his good foot, putting most of his weight on Eduard. Though shorter and slimmer than Alfred, he didn’t falter a bit, easily supporting him on the way back to the bed. Alfred wondered just how strong he was. He probably could have slung him over his back in a fireman’s carry without problem, he just didn’t want to startle Alfred any worse.

…Pretty considerate, really.

“There, see?” Eduard said as he helped Alfred lay down onto the bed. “No harm done. Er, any more harm, rather…”

Alfred blinked up at him, then looked back at Raivis. He’d come a bit closer, and looked a little less anxious than before.

He sucked in a deep breath, held it a moment, and then blew it out of his nose.

“Okay,” he said slowly, keeping his voice steady. “Can I get some answers now please?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Eduard said, pulling an old wooden chair from by the end of the bed and sitting himself in it, hands folded patiently. “Ask away.”

“Why did you attack me?”

Eduard grimaced, looking guilty. “That… was something that got extremely out of hand.”

“It was my fault,” Raivis mumbled up, coming closer, his feet making no sound on the floor. His fingers were still twisted together. “People usually come here because they want to get scared, so we, you know, play along. I-I suggested blocking the door tonight…”

“We thought you’d run back downstairs,” Eduard added. “We cleared a path behind you. No one ever tried jumping from the windows before, let alone on the third floor.”

“…Alright,” Alfred said, feeling like he only had more questions now. “Your friend… the one with the fire?”

“Feliks?” Eduard asked. “You’re going to ask if he’s a demon, right?”

Alfred nodded.

“He is.”

“He got trapped here,” Raivis added, hovering by Eduard’s shoulder. Literally. “Same as me.”

“He mentioned someone else,” Alfred continued, trying not to stare at Raivis’s feet not touching the floor. “And… there was another… thing, on the second floor, right?”

“That was Toris,” Raivis said.

“Which, speak of the devil,” Eduard added, turning to the door. Alfred heard a clicking sound in the hall outside and raised his head curiously. It sounded like dog toenails on hard floor. He was sort of right, it turned out, as the door nudged open and a massive brown wolf poked its head inside. Alfred recoiled instinctively, watching the beast slip through the door and head towards him, a bundle in its mouth. It looked up at Alfred and dipped its head, ears lowering. It almost looked like it was apologizing.

Alfred pointing at the wolf weakly and turned to Eduard. “…Toris?”

Eduard nodded. “Yes.”

“…Oh.”

Alfred dropped his hand and stared blankly at the ceiling.

The wolf trotted over and placed the bundle delicately beside him on the bed, Alfred realizing it was his jacket.

“Oh, uh, thanks,” he mumbled, picking it up. His phone fell out of the folds and landed in his lap, and he noticed with a grimace that the screen was cracked. “Oh, damnit…”

“It probably wouldn’t work again anyway,” the demon, Feliks, piped up as he slipped through the open door, a rather modern-looking first aid kit in his arms. “We tend to mess with electronics and stuff. Here, gimmie your leg.”

He knelt next to the bed, popping open the box while Alfred carefully readjusted his injured leg. He watched as Feliks carefully pulled up his pantleg, wincing at the sight of his own swollen ankle.

“Ooh, yeah, that looks broken,” Feliks grimaced, and began delicately pressing the ice packs against Alfred’s leg. “Try not to move anymore, alright? You don’t wanna make this worse.”

“What should I do?” Alfred asked nervously, clinging to his jacket.

“Get some rest, if you can,” Eduard said, standing up. “With your phone broken and town too far away, no one will be able to come get you out here tonight.”

“We’ll figure something out by morning,” Raivis added quickly when Alfred looked panicked. “We’re not going to make you stay, promise.”

“Yeah, we’ll get you home safe, don’t worry,” Feliks said, patting Alfred’s knee with a reassuring smile.

The wolf, Toris, who’d stayed back the whole time, approached the bed and gently nudged Alfred’s elbow with his snout, his ears down and posture non-threatening.

“…okay,” Alfred said slowly, relaxing against the bed as best he could and making himself take a deep breath. “Okay.”

He let Feliks tug a blanket over him and shifted against the pillows, trying not to move his leg too much. He watched the group leave with some trepidation, Toris trotting out with the first aid kit in his mouth and Feliks not far behind him, with Raivis floating out after them, looking hesitantly back at the bed before he left.

“Just call if you need anything,” Eduard said as he stood in the doorway. “Don’t worry about disturbing us, we’ll be up for the rest of the night.”

“Yeah… alright.”

Eduard gave what was probably supposed to be an encouraging smile, but the tips of his fangs showing didn’t help much.

“Well, ah, sleep well then.”

The door swung shut, and Alfred was left alone.

The candlelight flickered gently in his periphery as Alfred stared up at the ceiling, hands gripping his jacket to his chest and he tried to force his breath to stay steady.

Monsters. Literal fucking monsters were real, and they felt bad that they’d hurt him and were now nursing him back to health.

He kind of wanted to laugh. And also cry.

Somehow, he managed to go to sleep, out of sheer exhaustion if nothing else.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for character death/undead characters, morbid humor, and injuries in this chapter.

Sometimes, Eduard really wished he’d been buried properly.

Immortality was kind of cool at first. He could travel at will, not needing to worry about illness or exhaustion or exposure to the elements, and even the never-ending hunger he now felt could be eased by drinking from a wild deer or two. He had no trouble catching them now, being faster and stronger than most any animal in the forest. The only thing he needed to spend money on was clothing, which he could easily barter animal skins or meat for when he went into towns. He had what felt like endless time to explore the world and learn everything he could, something he never could have done while alive. Or, he assumed so at least; he really had no memory of what being alive was like.

After a century or so though, the novelty began to wear off, replaced by loneliness. The time he’d spent away from his grave left him looking significantly less human, pallid and sickly with reddened eyes, and people became much less willing to interact with him when he visited towns. He’d receive paranoid and suspicious stares and tug his cloak tighter around himself, feeling his skin start to itch in the sun and sending him to hide back in the shadows.

The last time he visited a village did not end well for him. Apparently, rumors of his existence reached the town before he did, and the people had been hearing stories of wild animals drained of their blood for months before he showed up. Once he arrived in the town square, alone and huddled in his cloak and looking incredibly strange and suspicious, he’d been mobbed and dragged back out into the woods, then pinned to the earth with a wooden stake through his chest.

Fortunately for him, they’d been just a few centimeters shy of his heart.

Unfortunately, that still meant he was stuck there for an entire day, trying to yank the damn thing out while slowly baking in the sun.

After that, Eduard figured he should relocate somewhere very, very far away.

He’d heard about this “New World” not long after he’d first emerged from his grave, and decided it was worth a shot. What better place for a new start than an entirely different continent, right?

Getting there was tricky. He certainly couldn’t afford to be a passenger, and no sensible captain would hire a man who looked like a walking corpse for the crew. In the end, he slipped aboard a merchant ship and hid in the hold with the cargo, snatching up rats for food and shrinking into the shadows whenever someone approached. Not the most dignified way to travel, but it got him where he needed to go.

He reached the New World and slipped easily through the city, blending in with crowds of thousands of other strangers until he reached the countryside and continued to head inland. He wanted to find somewhere secluded from people, a more permanent home where he would not be bothered, even though a part of him still ached for companionship to ease his chronic loneliness. He walked along roadsides at night and set up meager camps in the day, sleeping under his cloak to protect him from the sun. He found his wanderlust returning in full force as he traveled, admiring the new land, the new animals, and watching the new stars pass overhead as he steadily, patiently, sought out his new home.

He came upon a house one night, several miles from the closest town and looking quite abandoned. It seemed to have once been quite a regal mansion, but had clearly been left in disrepair. Paneling and roof shingles were missing and rust ran down the walls from the old gutters. In fact, it seemed to have been tampered with intentionally, as Eduard noticed every single window he could see was shattered, the frames empty with shards of glass still sitting on the lawn.

He slipped through the wrought iron gate as easy as a shadow, approaching the house. It wasn’t perfect, but it was large and would provide shelter and, even though it looked poorly cared for, it still seemed fairly new, meaning the structure was stable. It would do quite nicely, he thought to himself.

He reached the house and climbed the front steps, grabbing the door handle and twisting it. Much to his surprise, though the handle turned smoothly, the door itself remained stuck shut.

He had encountered this before, when he’d tried to enter a tailor’s shop to sell some leather and found he couldn’t open the door until the owner waved him inside. As a vampire, Eduard could not enter another’s home without first being invited.

Which meant someone was still living in this broken place.

He paused a moment, and pondered. On the one hand, it was now obvious the house was not abandoned, and certainly not free to take like he’d thought. But, on the other, what kind of person would tolerate living somewhere so battered and torn up? Perhaps they were a vagrant, or a beggar, and would not mind sharing their adopted home with another outcast of society. He could find a kindred spirit inside, perhaps even a friend.

That much alone made it was worth a shot, Eduard decided as he raised his hand. It wasn’t like whoever lived there could really hurt him if they turned out to be violent. Another benefit to being nigh-immortal. 

He knocked three times, loud and firm, the sound breaking the quiet stillness of the night. He was quiet for a moment, waiting for a response, but heard nothing.

He tried again.

“Hello,” he called out, hoping his voice carried through the broken windows. “Is there anyone living in there?”

He stayed quiet and listened, but still didn’t hear anything. He was starting to wonder if perhaps the door was just stuck, when a soft, whispery noise reached his ears.

“…who are you?”

It sounded like it was floating on the wind, blowing through the empty window panes and drifting through and out of the house. For the first time in a couple centuries, Eduard felt a shiver go down his spine. He wasn’t afraid, but he had the distinct impression he was in the presence of something very unusual.

“My name is Eduard,” he replied. “I would like to come inside, if that’s alright with you.”

“…why?” the voice asked.

“I’m looking for shelter, for the night at least. There aren’t many places I can stay safely, and I would greatly appreciate your hospitality.”

Eduard waited, trying to be patient but starting to feel a little anxious, as the voice remained silent for several seconds.

“…okay,” it said finally. “You c-can come in.”

Eduard smiled, and opened the door.

The inside of the house was as derelict as the outside. Shattered glass from the windows littered the floor along with torn portraits, destroyed furniture, and broken pieces of the wall and ceiling. Eduard grimaced slightly, but fixed his face into a neutral expression quickly. He was being shown hospitality here, he shouldn’t be ungrateful to his host.

Speaking of which, Eduard realized that aside from himself and the debris, the foyer was empty.

“Hello?” he called out again. “May I meet the person who kindly let me in?”

“I… I’m over here.”

He followed the voice, heading down the foyer hall and entering the parlor. Even though temperature didn’t really affect him anymore, he realized it was incredibly cold in the house, far too cold for a summer night.

The parlor was as empty as the foyer, just ruined furniture tossed everywhere, and Eduard’s brow furrowed. “Where are you?”

“I’m here.”

The voice sounded like it was right in front of him. Eduard scanned the room again, this time catching something wispy and slight against the opposite wall. He focused on it, squinting, watching thin, near-invisible shapes float in the cold air, not flowing with the dust, but as if they had a mind of their own.

His eyes widened when he noticed that the wisps formed a cohesive shape, and a humanoid one at that. The longer he looked, the more he could see features; a short, skinny boy dressed in what looked like rags with curly hair falling over half his face and dark stains running down his cheeks. Even as these features came into focus, Eduard could still see the wall behind him through his body.

Then, he realized what he was looking at. “Oh.”

The boy looked just as surprised, his single eye wide and anxious. “You can see me?”

“Yes, sort of,” Eduard replied. “You’re not… quite all there. Are you a ghost, by chance?”

He’d never met a ghost before, but if he could be a vampire, he had little doubt that ghosts could exist as well.

“I think I must be,” the boy said. “And, what about you? You d-don’t… you don’t feel human to me.”

“I’m a vampire,” Eduard said, matter-of-factly. He didn’t think a ghost would be as likely to stake him through the chest as many of the humans he’d met were.

“Oh.”

The boy shifted on his feet, and Eduard realized he wasn’t actually touching the floorboards.

“You s-said your name was Eduard?” the boy asked. He seemed to have a bit of a stutter.

“Yes, and yours?”

“Raivis.”

Eduard nodded. “Right. Well, Raivis, I am very grateful that you allowed me into your house, and I’d like to ask if I may stay here for a while.”

The boy looked surprised. “Here? Why would you want to stay here of all places?”

“Well, it’s quite far from any humans,” Eduard mused. “So I don’t have to bother them and they don’t have to bother me. That alone works for me.”

“B-but it’s a mess!” Raivis objected.

“Messes can be cleaned,” Eduard shrugged. Then, he frowned. “Listen, if you don’t want me to stay then I won’t, it is your home after all-”

“No!”

Raivis suddenly rushed forward and moved as if to grab Eduard’s arm, before stopping and pulling his hands up to his chest, shoulders hunched and face downturned. Eduard blinked, surprised.

“No, no, I d-don’t want you to leave,” Raivis mumbled. “I – it’s just… this house is awful.” He sniffed, and his voice shook a little. “I hate everything about this p-place, and-and I can’t understand why anyone w-would _want_ to live here…”

Eduard’s expression softened, and he took a step closer. “And you can’t leave, can you?” he asked, remembering some lore he’d heard long ago about ghosts staying stuck in one place, unable to move on.

Raivis shook his head. “Everyone else left. No one ever c-came to try and rebuild this place and… I got left here all alone.” He looked up, a small, sad smile on his ashen face. “So, I… I’d actually really like the company…”

Eduard smiled back at him. “Honestly, I would too. Immortality gets awfully lonely after a while.”

Raivis laughed softly, and Eduard felt glad he could make him happy.

It took a few days for Raivis to stop apologizing for the state the house was in, hovering awkwardly as Eduard shoved aside the broken pieces of glass and furniture, steadily clearing out spaces in the house for him to stay.

“Please, please, don’t worry about it,” Eduard said one night in the old master bedroom, clearing away the splintered bedframe to uncover the mattress underneath it. “I’m doing just fine clearing this up. Besides, it’s not your fault the house got left in such condition, is it?”

Floating by the cracked door frame, Raivis winced and grimaced. “It… kind of was my fault. Entirely my fault, actually.”

Eduard stood up straight and turned to face him, surprised. Raivis had seemed so meek and soft spoken since they met, it was hard to imagine the boy causing even a fraction of the damage the house had endured. “What happened?”

Raivis twisted one of his torn sleeves around his hand. “I… I’d have to tell you how I d-died.”

Eduard’s blew out short breath. It hadn’t even occurred to him to breach the topic of Raivis’s death, figuring it was an extremely personal, or painful, memory.

“If you’re okay sharing that with me,” he said gently. He took a seat on the uncovered mattress and cleared the splinters and dust off the space next to him, gesturing Raivis to sit by him. The boy hesitated a moment, then shuffled over and sat on the bare mattress. Eduard noticed it didn’t dip beneath him.

“I came here with the family that adopted me,” he began, softly, but there was something quietly bitter in his voice. “Well, they were s-supposed to adopt me. They treated me more like a slave than anything.”

“That’s awful.”

Raivis just shrugged. “It was expected, honestly. I was j-just a serf, I wasn’t really worth being nobility.”

“Still…” Eduard huffed, but trailed off. He didn’t want to stop Raivis from telling the story.

“You probably saw the name out on the gate,” Raivis continued. “That was the family. Gerhardt.” His frown deepened, and his shoulders hunched. “Lord Gerhardt – I always had to call him that, even though he was legally my father – he was the worst. He had such a horrible temper, he’d take it out on anyone close enough. He t-took me with him when we left Riga. I thought it was my way out, that I could…” He shook his head and made a pitiful noise, hands curling into fists on his knees.

“We can stop,” Eduard said quickly. “I know this can’t be pleasant for you, and I’m not going to make you relive it.”

“N-no,” Raivis hiccupped. He swallowed thickly and was silent for a moment. “No,” he repeated, much more steadily. “I want to t-tell this story, please. I’ve never had the chance b-before.”

Eduard took a breath and sat back. “Okay. I’m listening.”

Raivis was quiet for another moment before he began again.

“I planned to run away,” he said. “Steal some money, j-just a bit, and go to the city. I’d get a job, buy a home, raise a family… live the American dream…” His shoulders hunched higher and his head dipped. “And then Gerhardt hit me in the head with a d-damned paperweight and killed me.” His voice was trembling with barely suppressed rage, his little grey fists gripping his ragged clothes tightly.

“How awful is that?” he asked bitterly, surprising Eduard with how angry he sounded, his voice low and quiet but seething. “Being unable to leave, because the damned man you’re trying to escape from is the very same one who killed you, who made sure you’d _always_ be miserable even _after you’re dead-!”_

The door frame suddenly buckled with a loud _crunch!_ splitting and splintering out of nowhere. Eduard jumped, staring up the frame for a second, until Raivis leapt up and rapidly backed away, face buried in his hands.

“Oh g-god, oh no, oh no…” he whimpered, shaking. “No, no, I d-don’t want to do this again!”

“Raivis!” Eduard stood up and followed him quickly, but Raivis had slipped through the wall into the next room before he could reach him. He cursed softly, running out of the bedroom and towards the neighboring office. The door was still mostly intact and jammed shut, but Eduard managed to peer in through a hole where the handle had once been, finding Raivis curled up in a corner beside a withered old taxidermy boar’s head. Though he was sure he could break the door down easily, Eduard remained out in the hall, giving Raivis some space.

“Raivis, what happened?” he asked, worry audible in his voice.

“It was me,” the boy hiccupped, shoulders trembling. Eduard could see something dark oozing from his remaining eye and dripping down his pale cheek. Was he crying?

“I d-destroyed this place,” Raivis said between shaky sobs. “I was so mad – it wasn’t fair – I was s-supposed to leave and-and I just chased them all out instead…” He sniffed, wiping his eye with his sleeve and smearing the black liquid. “I’m alone here… I scared them away and now I’m all alone. I-it’s my own damn fault…”

“Raivis,” Eduard said gently. “You’re not alone. I’m here after all, aren’t I? And I’m sure I must be far better company than your old masters.”

He hoped that would make Raivis laugh or at least smile a little, but the boy just shrunk further into the corner.

“Raivis?”

“I... I’m going t-to scare you away too… I know it.”

Eduard blinked, and sighed softly.

“Raivis,” he repeated, his voice low but firm. “I am a blood-drinking creature that crawled out of my own grave and can single-handedly take down a bear. I don’t scare easily.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Raivis finally looked at him, eye shining. “Are you sure?” he asked timidly.

“Very sure,” Eduard said with a gentle smile. “May I come in?”

Raivis hesitated a second, then nodded.

Eduard forced open the door easily enough, splintering the wood under his fingers and slipping through the gap. He approached Raivis and sat down beside him, knees up and back against the wall. He longed to comfort the boy somehow, wrap an arm around his shoulders or at the very least pat his fluffy hair, but he was sure his hand would simply pass through him. He used his words instead.

“For as long as you’ll have me, I’m staying,” he said. “I enjoy your company, and I already consider you my friend, and no moving object is going to change that. In any case, I can’t blame you for being angry. I’m sure if I knew who killed me I’d want to throw something heavy at them too.”

Raivis looked up at him, a little surprised. “Someone killed you? I thought vampires were turned through being bitten?”

“Well, I assume I was killed,” Eduard explained. “I don’t remember anything from being human except my name, and even then I’m not completely sure. I’ve never found any bite marks on myself anyway.” He rubbed at the side of his neck. “In any case, when I woke up, I crawled out of a shallow grave with no tombstone, so I can only guess that someone killed me and was trying to hide my body quickly.”

Raivis shuddered slightly. “I’d hate that. Not knowing who or what killed me.”

Eduard shrugged. “It’s a little frustrating, yes, but for me, it’s hard to get mad about it because I don’t remember anything.” He tipped his head back against the wall and smiled wryly. “If someone _did_ try to kill me, I suppose it doesn’t matter, since I couldn’t do anything to them if I didn’t know who they were, right?”

Raivis hummed softly, and the corner of his lip twitched up.

“What if,” he said quietly. “They came back to check your grave and found you’d left? Imagine the look on their face!”

Eduard blinked, then snorted. “ _That_ would certainly be an unpleasant surprise for them, I’m sure.”

Raivis giggled. “They’d be so freaked out!”

Raivis seemed to have a bit of a morbid sense of humor. But, Eduard thought, at least he was smiling.

Eduard meant what he said, and he quickly began to make true on his promise that he planned to stay. What began with clearing off a mattress soon spread to the whole bedroom, Eduard piling up old destroyed furniture to rekindle the old fireplace that had been filled with nothing but ash and dust for a few decades. He didn’t need the warmth to survive, and Raivis certainly couldn’t feel the temperature, but the flickering orange light was comforting on early mornings, making him feel sleepy and relaxed before he went to bed for the day.

With all the broken furniture removed, the bedroom became awfully barren. So, it was only natural that Eduard began refurbishing some of the salvageable pieces, rebuilding a fairly nice dresser and bed frame for himself. He took a risk and headed into town on winter evenings, after the sun had gone down but the shops were still open. Pale and gaunt as he was, he actually blended it rather well with the pedestrians lining the cold streets, most of them brought down by winter blues as well.

Soon his dresser was filled with new clothes and his bed had new sheets, courtesy of a few pieces of jewelry Lady Gerhardt had left behind in her rush to leave. Raivis insisted Eduard sell them off in exchange for money; he certainly had no use for them.

From the bedroom, it felt natural for Eduard to start cleaning the rest of the house, bit by bit. Raivis seemed to appreciate this greatly, hovering by Eduard and fumbling out his thanks and apologies that he couldn’t help. He’d tried to, attempting to move a mirror from the floor with the same power he’d used to destroy the home, but ended up spontaneously shattering it instead. He didn’t want to try anything like that again, especially since several of the shards wound up buried in Eduard’s arm. Even though Eduard was fine (he’d healed from the stake through his chest and he could certainly heal from the glass in his arm), it had made Raivis feel awful all over again, and it took a few weeks for him to stop worrying that Eduard was going to leave at any time.

Bit by bit, the mess was cleared out, leaving dusty old halls and rooms empty, but clean. Lady Garhardt’s jewelry supply eventually ran out, but Eduard had already set up a comfortable living space for himself by then. He had his room, now with a slightly lumpy arm chair in it and a small collection of second-hand books, another old seat with some cozy blankets set up by the fireplace, and a corner of the kitchen to gut animals and drain their blood, along with a couple mugs and bowls to drink from. Raivis appreciated these cozy little places too, leaning weightlessly against Eduard in front of the fire on cold mornings, or sometimes resting in the arm chair while Eduard slept during the day. He couldn’t sleep himself, but closing his eye, thinking about nothing, and listening to Eduard’s soft snores was wonderfully relaxing. The pair got along well, Eduard describing his travels and Raivis always curious and eager to know more. They liked to pretend sometimes that they were the wealthy owners of the mansion, planning it out as their dream home and making it purely their own. One time, Eduard strutted into the den and, in a pompous voice, suggested they place an elephant by the fireplace to show off to their guests just how rich they were, and Raivis laughed so hard he fell through the floor. Eduard learned that Raivis had a fondness for wild flowers and, when they were in bloom, made sure to bring back a small collection of them whenever he went hunting at night. He’d let Raivis instruct him on how to arrange them, patiently shifting the little flowers around until they were just right, and Raivis’s remaining eye lit up with glee.

He noticed, too, that Raivis seemed more together the longer he stayed in the mansion. Not only was he more confident and less timid, but steadily, he even began to look more solid. Though he remained transparent, especially during the day when there was plenty of light to pass through him, his features became clearer all the time. On especially dark nights, with no moon and clouds blocking the stars and no fire going, Eduard would look at him and swear Raivis was a completely corporeal human standing right in front of him.

“I’m not really sure what it means,” Raivis had mused once, examining his own hands. “But, I think it’s because you’re around now. I’m not alone so, I have a reason to not just fade away, you know?”

It made Eduard smile.

Before he really knew it, Eduard had spent a decade living in the old Gerhardt mansion. He still couldn’t see himself leaving anytime soon.


	5. Chapter 5

Alfred was kind of amazed he’d gotten any sleep at all.

He woke up with his head still hurting and a dull ache in his leg, but overall no worse for wear. It took him a moment to recall what had happened the previous night, and once he had, he spent a few good, long minutes just staring up at the ceiling. Yellow light was hitting the ceiling beams, casting long shadows across the old wood. Moving carefully to not worsen his headache, he tipped his head back and squinted at the window on the wall behind him. Through the wooden bars, he could see it had to be about mid-morning.

He noticed then that the ice pack on his leg was still quite cold. Had someone come and replaced it in the night? On top of that, his glasses were gone from his face, and a couple more blankets had been layered on top of him, staving off the morning chill.

It made him uneasy, knowing the monsters had been back in this room while he'd been unconscious and unable to defend himself. On the other hand though, the fact that they hadn't killed or attacked him in his sleep was pretty definite proof that they meant him no harm.

Still, he lifted a hand and felt around his neck for any bite marks, just in case.

He went stiff suddenly as he heard footsteps in the hall outside, staring with blurry vision at the bedroom door anxiously. In spite of his reassuring thoughts that he was safe here, he still went tense and gripped the blankets over him as the handle turned and the door swung open.

Another stranger entered the room, the first aid kit under one arm. His hair was long, brown, and shaggy, tied back into a loose ponytail with his bangs hanging in his pale face. He looked surprised to see Alfred awake, but smiled when their eyes met.

"Ah, good morning," he said cheerfully, slipping through the door and approaching the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Uh... alright," Alfred replied, pushing himself up on his elbows. "Kind of achy..."

The man smiled sympathetically and knelt by the bed, opening the kit. "Ah, yes. We are all so very sorry about that. Don't worry, we'll get you out of here soon."

He gently lifted away the layers of blankets, removing the old ice pack from Alfred's leg and pulling a new one out of the kit.

"Uhm," Alfred said. "Have we met?"

The man glanced up at him, looking puzzled for a second, and then laughed.

Alfred felt a little unnerved. "What's so funny? What'd I say?"

"Nothing, nothing, I'm sorry," the man chuckled, shaking his head. "It's not you, I just completely forgot. Of _course_ you wouldn't recognize me!" He pressed the fresh ice pack to Alfred's leg gently. "We met last night, although, I was significantly, ah, hairier then."

"...Oh," Alfred said, eyebrows lifting. "So, you're uh... Toris?"

"Yes, that's me," Toris smiled, tucking Alfred's leg back under the bedsheets.

"...Are you a werewolf?" Alfred asked bluntly.

"Indeed I am."

Toris smiled at him again, and Alfred noticed this time that he had sharper teeth than normal. Not as prominent as Eduard's fangs, but they were there nonetheless. His eyes were yellowish too, Alfred realized, and there was a slightly wild gleam in them.

"Okay," he said weakly.

Despite his eyes and his fangs, Toris's smile was gentle and sympathetic as he stood up. "I know you must be frightened," he said softly. "But, I want you to know we all appreciate that you've cooperated with us. We'd hate to see you get anymore hurt."

"Yeah, well," Alfred mumbled, shifting on the bed. "I mean, thanks for helping me out, too. I know I wouldn't have wanted to spend all night lying out on a cold lawn."

Toris's smile widened, and he nodded. "You're very welcome. By the way, would you like some breakfast? It would be a good idea to get some of your strength back before we try to move you."

Alfred remembered he hadn't eaten since lunch the previous day. He'd been planning to treat himself to Thai take-out for dinner once he got back to his dorm, both to comfort himself after exploring the creepy house and to celebrate shoving just how brave he was into Gilbert's face.

"Yeah, breakfast would be great," he said, brightening up.

Toris looked pleased. "Right, I'll get started on that then. Your stuff is on the nightstand, by the way," he added.

Alfred glanced over and saw his phone and glasses sitting neatly on the little table beside the bed.

"You can try to see if your phone still works," Toris suggested. "But, I'm afraid with both Feliks and Raivis living here, technology rarely works properly." He gave an apologetic, slightly guilty smile, and headed for the door. "I'll be back up soon, alright?"

"Yeah, alright," Alfred nodded, watching him leave.

As the door closed, Alfred reached for his glasses, slipping them on his nose. They still felt slightly crooked, and he wondered if he'd bent them when he fell. At least they weren't cracked, he thought.

The same could not be said of his phone. A massive spider-web shaped crack covered the whole screen, making Alfred grimace as he looked down at it. No big deal, he thought, he'd had cracked screens before and the phone itself still worked. He pressed the lock button hopefully, and grunted in frustration when the screen lit up in a mess of glitchy colors and shapes, his lock screen barely recognizable under the mess. He tried tapping and swiping the screen, but it didn't seem to be registering his touches at all.

"Damn it," he grumbled, laying back down and craning his neck, looking back towards the window and the sun outside. He wondered if the footage he had gotten was salvageable, and if he could still shove it in Gilbert's face when he got back.

His musings were interrupted when he heard the door open again, looking up expecting Toris again. Instead, it was the blond-haired demon, Feliks, poking his head in.

"Oh, hey!" he said cheerfully, smiling wide. "Toris said you were up! How'd you sleep?"

"Well as I could," Alfred said. Despite his horns and swinging tail, Feliks's casual attitude was rather relaxing, and made Alfred feel a little more at ease.

"You got some sleep, so that's good at least," Feliks smiled, sauntering in. "Don't worry though, alright? You'll be outta here really soon."

Alfred nodded. "Yeah, Toris said the same thing." He remembered something else Toris said, and his brows furrowed curiously. "Hey, he also mentioned that you, like, mess with technology and stuff? What's that about?"

Feliks looked amused, snickering as he sat on the end of the bed, legs swinging casually. "I don't know exactly, but I guess that, like, my magic messes with signals or whatever." He shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, dude."

Alfred blinked. "W-wait, you have _magic?_ " he asked, gobsmacked. "Why didn't you just fix my leg last night then?!"

"Yeeeah, see," Feliks grimaced, brushing his hair out of his face. "Demon magic doesn't exactly work out well for people. No matter how good my intentions are, it's gonna fuck you over. Like, say I heal your leg right now, yeah? You'll probably just get hit by a truck on the way home and need both legs amputated or something awful like that."

"Oh," Alfred said, shoulders drooping.

"I really am sorry," Feliks sighed. "But, the poetic irony is just kind of built-in. I can't do anything about it."

Feeling defeated, Alfred lay back against the bed. "...not your fault," he mumbled.

Feliks kicked his legs awkwardly and didn't say anything.

There were more footsteps out in the hall, and Alfred began to smell something quite good. Some kind of cooked meat, he couldn't tell what exactly.

"Hey, grub's up!" Feliks said and he hopped off the bed, looking glad to have a distraction. He pulled open the door just as Toris entered, carrying a large tray with three steaming plates on it.

"Oh, thank you!" he said, smiling at Feliks before he approached the bed. "Here you are, this should help get you back on your feet."

"What, uh, is it?" Alfred asked, eyeing the cooked meat dubiously as Toris placed the tray on the bed. He still didn't want to let his guard down too much here, even if the monsters seemed perfectly friendly.

"Deer," Toris replied, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Venison?" Alfred asked. "Where would you guys get venison around here?"

"Eduard and I brought it down last night."

"Brought it down - oh." Duh, Alfred thought, they _were_ literal predators after all.

Toris smiled awkwardly, passing Alfred a plate. "I mean, we have to get our food where we can, you know?"

"No, no, I understand," Alfred said quickly, shifting to sit up and taking the plate. "Can't exactly run down to a convenience store whenever you want, right?"

"Not looking the way most of us do, no," Toris said with a chuckle. "We try to avoid humans for the most part."

Feliks grabbed a plate off the tray and sat cross-legged on the end of the bed. "I still say you'd totally blend in, no problem."

Toris gave him a reproachful look. "And I still say I hate going into town unless I have to. You would too if you had an angry mob chased you out."

"Alright, alright," Feliks said defensively, putting his hands up. "I get that, but maybe I'd just like someone to tag along for errands every so often, okay?"

Toris fiddled with the edge of his plate, looking slightly agitated. "I'll think about it."

"Um," Alfred piped up, hoping to avoid what looked like a building domestic spat. “Where are the other two?”

“Eduard and Raivis?” Toris asked. “They’ll be asleep by now.”

“Can ghosts sleep?”

“Well, he calls it sleep,” Feliks added. “Mostly he just hangs out and doesn’t do anything, but it’s good for his nerves. Poor guy was apparently a wreck when Eduard first moved in, he needs all the relaxation he can get.”

“Oh,” Alfred mumbled.

“Anyway, let’s focus on getting you home for now" Toris said. "With your phone broken and no way for us to contact anyone to bring you into town, the plan is that Feliks disguises himself as an early morning jogger and flags down a car on the main road to bring you to a hospital."

"You can do that?" Alfred asked, glancing at Feliks.

"Yeah, dude," the demon replied, talking through a mouthful of food. "I told you I've got magic, remember?"

Alfred watched him chew and swallow. "Do… demons normally eat human food?”

“I do whenever I get the chance!” Feliks laughed. “No wonder there’s so many gluttons back home, this stuff is great!”

He happily shoved another piece of venison into his mouth while Alfred sat in silence, not sure he wanted to know where “home” for Feliks was exactly.

"Speaking of which, eat up alright?" Feliks chastised. "You're not gonna get better without any protein."

Alfred picked up a piece of meat and hesitantly bit into it. It was pretty good.

"So," Toris went on, looking slightly annoyed by the interruption. "Once Feliks gets a car, we'll go with the story that you came out here alone on a dare and fell down the stairs, breaking your leg and your phone. Feliks heard you calling for help while he was jogging past, came into the house to get you, and then he'll help you into the car, and you'll be on your way."

"That's it?" Alfred asked.

"That's it," Feliks repeated. "You'll get all patched up and you'll never have to even think about this place again!"

Alfred bit off another piece of venison, feeling relieved.

“I have to admit, I’m curious,” Toris said. “What brought you here in the first place if you weren’t looking to get scared?”

“Pretty much the same reason you guys made up,” Alfred replied. “My asshole roommate dared me to get some footage inside the house, and I knew he wouldn’t let up until I went along with it, so I just tried to get it over with.”

“I hope he regrets doing that,” Toris frowned, starting to dig into his breakfast. “You could have seriously gotten hurt.”

“And hey, if he keeps being a jerk, you could always come back and get me to possess him for a bit.”

“Feliks, _no.”_

Alfred went quiet and kept eating, while the other two began bickering in what seemed like a very familiar fashion. He wondered if Gilbert would actually feel bad about this. He probably would; he could be a jerk but he wasn’t a sociopath. He’d probably try to weasel out of apologizing, though. Maybe if Alfred told him about meeting actual, literal monsters, he’d be sorry.

Wait.

Alfred quietly glanced up at the pair sitting in front of him, still arguing playfully, feeling a weight settle in his gut. There was no way these guys would be okay with him blabbing to the rest of the world about all this, right? But, how could they expect him to just keep something like this secret? He’d met creatures that weren’t supposed to be real, gotten confirmation that some kind of afterlife existed, there was an _actual being from Hell itself_ sitting on his bed and enjoying breakfast with him.

He swallowed his mouthful nervously, suddenly very aware of the weight bearing down on his shoulders.

What on Earth was he supposed to do with himself once he left?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for period-typical xenophobia and injuries in this chapter.

Toris had just thought it was a stray dog at first. A very large, rather vicious stray dog, but nothing more than that.

There had been rumors going around for months now, about giant paw prints left in the mud on the edge of the factory town. Toris had seen them himself a couple times, when he was awake before dawn and shuffling sleepily towards the factory along with all the other workers. He’d glance at the trees outside of the town warily, half-expecting to see some huge mongrel foaming at the mouth within the forest, but he never spotted it. He fellow workers would bump into him and nudge him along, telling him to quit dawdling and he’d rush off towards the plant.

Hours later, after dusk, he’d stagger back to his building, back and arms aching from the long hours spent at the assembly line. If he saw the paw prints then, now that the sun was vanishing and leaving the town vulnerable in the gloom of night, he’d reach into his pocket and habitually run his thumb across the silver cross and wooden beads. The rosary had been a precious gift from his grandmother, not long before she passed away, not long before he climbed on the boat and sailed for America.

He wished his fellow tenants could understand how much it meant to him. But, there was a reason he kept it in his pocket, and that was because his flat mates gave him filthy looks when he wore it openly. Well, they gave him filthy looks regardless. Most of the workers did, actually.

It was frustrating, to say the least. No matter how many times he’d offered friendship to his fellow workers, he’d be met with a distrustful expression and a comment along the lines of, “I’m not making friends with Poles.”

It didn’t matter how many times he told them he was Lithuanian. He was Catholic, he had an accent, and that was enough to earn their ire, apparently.

So, when that huge stray dog did charge out from the woods one night, when the whole complex was lit by a bright full moon, he wasn’t really surprised that no one came to help him. Even when the creature had dug its fangs into his forearm and pinned him to the ground, they fled back to their buildings instead.

It took a well-aimed kick to the beast’s ribcage to get it to release him, and another kick to its snout to send it running back into the forest. With the threat gone, someone _finally_ helped haul him to his feet and led him to the infirmary, while Toris wrapped his bleeding arm in his own jacket.

He spent the rest of the night in the infirmary, hazy on painkillers and moaning as his arm was stitched up. The next morning, he was unceremoniously herded out and sent back to the factory floor, his arm still aching and his head still woozy.

_At least I’m alive,_ he’d thought on the walk through the town that night. He smiled to himself, and slipped the hand of his good arm into his pocket to curl his fingers around the little silver cross, grateful that it had protected him.

He shrieked and pulled his hand out, pain suddenly flaring in the tips of his fingers as if they’d been stabbed by burning needles. Shaking with shock, he stared at his hand, seeing the skin on his fingers was red and raw, already blistering.

His stomach sank as he realized his fellow workers were staring at him, startled and confused by his sudden scream. He blinked, then smiled weakly and raised his bandaged arm.

“It just hurts a little, I’m fine,” he offered. The other workers mumbled or grunted and went on their way, just wanting to get to their apartments and not be bothered with the strange foreigner.

For his part, Toris did not sleep well that night. Once the lights were out, he wrapped his hand in an old handkerchief and pulled his rosary out of his pocket. Even through the fabric, the cross still felt unnaturally warm, and the blisters on his fingers began to sting again. Fighting down panic, he dropped the rosary into his small, personal trunk and shoved it under the bed, climbing into his cot and trying desperately to breathe calmly. Around him, his fellow workers snored and slept, while Toris wrung his hands together and forced himself not to think about what had just happened.

Life did not get much better for Toris over the next few weeks. His arm was healing, but he still couldn’t use it very well, leaving him working at half the speed as everyone else. That earned him even more anger from the workers on his line, as he kept slowing down and disrupting the assembly process. Output decreased and the foreman his pay, leaving Toris struggling to scrape the money together for rent or meals.

Speaking of which, Toris had never thought the factory dining hall had anything remotely close to gourmet to offer, but the food was worse than ever now. Dry bread that he’d managed to down before now made him gag, and the bland but thick soup was nowhere near as satisfying as it had once been. He found himself craving meat almost exclusively, something far heartier and fresher than the fatty bits of pork he’d pick out of the soup. He once caught himself staring at a pigeon perched on top of one of the buildings one morning and realized he was salivating, wondering how it would taste.

Along with the cravings, the factory conditions began to wear on him even worse now. The scent of hundreds of tired, sweaty men mixed with the smell of coal smoke, cigarettes, and melting metal had never been pleasant, but now it was almost unbearable. On top of that was the noise; machines clanking, cogs grinding, and people shouting, all of it combined into a pounding pulse that felt like a physical assault on Toris’s ears. The sounds and smells of the factory began to make him feel ill, manifesting as awful migraines that would have him clutching his head in pain throughout the night.

About two weeks after he’d been attacked by the dog, his arm still hadn’t fully healed, and he was still failing to keep up at the assembly line. The foreman lost patience and snapped at him, smacking the back of his head and yelling at him to stop being lazy. Toris had weathered through this kind of treatment before, meekly shrinking down and getting his work done as fast as he could, just trying to get through the day. This time though, he surprised even himself when he turned sharply and _snarled_ at the man who’d struck him, “Stop it!”

It took him a second to realize everyone nearby had turned to stare at him, and his sudden rush of anger-induced courage withered away into humiliation. He turned back to the line, shoulders hunched, and began clumsily assembling parts again. No one on the line yelled at him or hit him again, but he could tell they were keeping a constant, suspicious eye on him. He didn’t think this situation was any better.

Try as he might, he couldn’t deny that there was something wrong with him. From the moment his cross had burned his fingers, he knew he had become something awful. It couldn’t be a coincidence that it had all started happening after he had been bitten by that dog, either. Late at night, he would lie awake and clutch his wounded arm, now scaring over, and remember stories from his childhood, about beasts in the forests and monsters in the guise of men, creatures who could only be killed by silver, who would torment the same towns for generations. He’d glance out the window on clear nights and see the moon steadily getting fatter, and his stomach would churn with dread.

A month after he was bitten, he decided he couldn’t risk it. As much as he loathed his fellow workers, he didn’t really want to hurt anyone, and he was sure they’d kill him trying to protect themselves. Late into his shift, he started to feel a peculiar itch on the back of his shoulders. His arm was healed now, so he ignored it, trying to work as fast as he could to make up for the time he lost while he was injured, but before long he was squirming anxiously as the itch became a prickling heat, spreading down his spine and over his arms. Just before clock-out, he absentmindedly reached under his shirt collar to scratch his irritated skin, and felt a patch of thick, soft hair that had certainly not been there before. He shook as he finished his shift, filing out with the other workers and trying to look calm.

He dawdled near the back of the crowd, slipping behind where no one would notice him, then darted back around the factory, heading for the forest. He sprinted through the trees, getting as far away as he could from the complex, and praying that the smell of humans would not attract whatever he turned into back to the factory town.

All too soon, the prickling heat consumed his body and he could no longer focus on running, forced to the forest floor with a groan as he trembled, waiting for the worst to happen.

The first big surprise was that it was painless. Even as his bones shifted and his limbs stretched and twisted, it never got worse than the prickling sensation, which faded as more fur sprouted in clumps across his body. Even when his face pushed out into a long, narrow snout, it didn’t hurt, though it certainly felt strange.

The second big surprise came as he shakily stood up, forced to stand on all fours now, as the ripped shreds of his clothes fell off. As he took stock of this form, lifting his new paws experimentally and glancing over his shoulder to find he had a tail, he suddenly realized what he was doing. He was examining himself, studying this body, figuring out what had changed and how, something no beast could surely know how to do. In his mind, he was still human.

Well, for the most part. It felt like there was another presence in his brain, not another mind per se, but a set of instincts and knowledge he’d never felt before. It was this part that kept him balanced as he started walking forward on four legs, that made his ears turn to follow a sound in the bushes. It was the part that, when he realized he was still himself, made his tail start wagging happily.

That part of his brain also wanted to run. For no real reason, it wasn’t afraid, but it was filled with a pent-up, buzzing energy that demanded to be let loose.

So, Toris let it loose. He took off through the woods in a sprint, far faster than he’d ever ran before, his ears back and his mouth open, tongue flopping out.

And that was the last big surprise; he was enjoying this. It was _fun!_ The cool night air ruffled through his fur and the trees became his playground, as he bounded over logs and pounced onto trunks, springing off and sending himself in a completely different direction. The aches of factory work seemed to have left his body, even the wound on his arm didn’t bother him. His senses were flooded with all the sounds and smells of the forest at night. Unlike the factory, it wasn’t overwhelming, far from it. It was intriguing, and he thrilled in hearing an owl hooting in the far, far distance, and smelling a trail left behind by marching ants in the dead leaves. Other animals darted out of his way but he paid them no mind, running and leaping through the woods like he’d known them for years, like he was home.

His heart pounded with excitement and happiness swelled in his chest, and he felt like bursting out laughing. The sound buzzed in his throat and poured from his muzzle, coming out as a long, loud howl, filling the night air with a song of joy.

Even if he had to wait until everyone was in the factory the next morning, sneak naked into his apartment and dress himself, then rush to the assembly line and do a whole day’s shift on no sleep, it was well worth it.

It became a routine, a little monthly escape from the dreariness of the factory and his hostile coworkers. He figured out by the second month he should sneak a change of clothes with him out into the woods, snatching a bag to bring with him before he vanished into the trees. His spirits lifted over the following months, as he looked excitedly up at the moon each night, watching it grow slimmer and then fat again with an eager anticipation. He taught himself how to hunt, letting the wolf’s instincts guide him as he caught his prey and finally managed to get his fill of the fresh meat he’d been craving. No one even seemed to miss him; the apartments were so crowded that it was tough to realize one person wasn’t in their bed.

At least, that’s how it was for the first few months.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Toris’s heart dropped into his stomach as he looked up and realized the apartment wasn’t empty. He’d just slipped back into the door, already wearing his change of clothes and planning to drop off his bag before he ran to the factory, and his foreman was standing in the empty room, frowning sternly at him.

What was he called again? They interacted so infrequently apart from him shoving Toris around that Toris wasn’t even sure he’d ever learned his name.

Regardless, in a bit of a panic, he decided to play dumb, and smiled innocently. “What do you mean, sir?”

The man stepped forward, pushed the door open, and yanked Toris inside. He smelled strongly like cigarettes, and it made Toris’s sensitive nose wrinkle.

“Gimmie the bag.”

Toris turned it over reluctantly, and watched the manager shake it out onto one of the beds. All that was in it was Toris’s clothes from the previous night, which he’d stripped out of and stuffed in his bag before transforming.

“It’s just clothes,” Toris said, honestly.

“Why put them in a bag?”

“I was going to bring them to the showers,” Toris said, thinking quickly. “To change after I’d washed, sir.”

The manager squinted suspiciously at him. Toris got the feeling if he still had a tail, it’d be tucked between his legs right now.

“People in this apartment are saying you’re not in bed some nights,” he continued. “What’s that about, huh?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, sir,” Toris replied, grasping at straws. “I’ve been in bed every night since I started work here.”

The manager stared hard at him, and Toris tried to keep his breathing steady.

Without a word, he shoved Toris’s bag against his chest a brushed past him brusquely, catching Toris’s shoulder on the way.

“Get to work,” he growled, and Toris hurriedly shoved his clothes and bag into the trunk and ran to the factory. He just hoped that, if he behaved himself and kept his head down, this would all be forgotten by the next full moon.

If only he could be so lucky.

The air was thick with fog this morning, leaving the plants hanging heavily with dew. Beneath Toris’s bare feet, the leaf-covered ground gave way to mud as he neared the factory town, then shifted into lose gravel as he darted down the road towards the large block of apartments. Bag swinging wildly off one arm, he ran into the building and sprinted upstairs to his apartment, just like every other morning after he’d transformed. He’d chuck his bag inside and pull on his shoes, then run to the factory, clock in, and blend in with the crowds of all the other workers.

The smell of the factory was so overpowering that Toris didn’t catch the scent of his foreman until he bolted out of the stairwell and ran right into him, just a few doors down from his own apartment.

“The hell are you doing?!” he demanded as Toris fumbled, struggling to catch his bag and stay upright.

“I-I’m sorry!” he stuttered quickly. He clutched the bag to his chest and started stumbling towards his apartment. “I’ll get to work, just let me-”

The foreman grabbed his arm and swung his back around to face him, and Toris fought down the urge to snarl at him again and pull himself away. He already knew he was in trouble, he didn’t want to push his luck and make himself seem even more suspicious.

Unfortunately, it seemed his self-control was in vain, as he saw the foreman’s face turn from an expression of shock to disgust.

“I knew you were up to no good!” the foreman spat, then turned and ran down the stairwell.

Toris stood there a second, stunned, confused, and scared, until the realization hit him. He quickly wiped his hand over his mouth and pulled it away, groaning with dread as he saw his palm and fingers were smeared with half-dried blood.

Of all things, he’d forgotten to clean his muzzle off after catching that rabbit.

He didn’t hesitate, sprinting down the hall and throwing the apartment door open, yanking his trunk out from under his side of the bed and tossing anything important into his bag; his journal and pen, extra clothes, some bits of bread he’d snuck from the cafeteria. 

Ever since he’d arrived at the factory, he knew no one else liked him. He was too foreign, too alien, no matter how much he tried to get along with them. He meant them no harm, he truly didn’t, but they’d always viewed him with suspicion. And now, here he was with blood on his mouth, having been acting very strangely for the past few months, and they were finally tired of him. He had to get out.

He paused only when he came across the rosary, half-wrapped in his handkerchief and untouched since the day he’d left it in there. He stared at it for a moment, wondering if he should reach in and grab it, when the sound of voices from the road outside reached his ears. There were a lot of them, and they sounded angry.

Snapping back to his senses, he grabbed the rosary by the chain and dropped it into his bag. Even if it hurt him now, he knew he couldn’t bear to leave it behind. He tied the bag shut and clumsily pulled his boots on, scrambling to his feet just as he began to make out the individual voices.

“Y’hear he sneaks out at night and comes back with bloody hands?”

“Billy told me he’s seen his eyes turn red.”

“D’you think he’s got rabies?”

“He tried to bite me once.”

“He _did_ bite me!”

_Well at least I provided them with plenty of gossip,_ Toris thought wryly and he grabbed what little money he had from his pillowcase and threw his bag over his shoulder. Even as a wolf, he was sure he would remember biting someone. _Maybe they’ll go after that poor soul next,_ he mused bitterly.

Cautiously, he peered out the apartment window, grimacing at the sight of a few dozen workers on the ground five floors below him, along with several of the managers, including his own foreman. His heart sank into his stomach when he saw at least three of them had guns, two pistols and a shotgun. Others had brought improvised weapons from the factory; large wrenches, loose pipes, hammers. Toris wondered briefly if those would do him any harm since they weren’t made of silver, and decided he’d rather not find out this way.

As the crowd piled into the building, he slipped out of the apartment, heading for the end of the hall, where a fire escape hung outside the window. The thing was rusted and flimsy-looking, and Toris had always hoped that he’d never have to need it, but he had little choice this time. He shoved the window open, pushing hard to get it unstuck from its old frame, and gingerly climbed out onto the escape. It creaked and wobbled ominously, and he started climbing down as quickly as he could, praying it wouldn’t fall apart. He jumped the last few feet, stumbling in the gravel as he ran around the back of the building, staying in the shadow of the apartment block as he headed for the factory. He looped around the back, just as he had for the past few months, and slipped quickly into the forest, knowing he would not be coming back this time.

It made him feel a little bit better to hear angry shouts in the distance behind him, outraged that they had let him slip away. But, that still didn’t change the fact that he had no idea where he was going from here.

The sun was coming up and the fog was dissipating. Toris sucked in a lungful of fresh air, adjusted his bag on his back, and set about his steady trek through the forest, ready to walk as long as he needed to. Wherever he ended up, that would be where he ended up, he told himself.

He found somewhere far sooner than he expected. At just about midnight, he found an edge to the forest, which opened up onto a large property. A hill sloped up from the tree line, atop which sat a weary-looking mansion. It seemed mostly deserted, but there was firelight flickering gently through some of the windows. He’d emerged from behind the house, finding an iron fence surrounding the place with an overgrown garden covering the hill side.

_It’s worth a shot,_ Toris thought to himself, as he scaled the fence and approached the house. He hadn’t slept at all the previous night, too busy enjoying his time as the wolf, and between the adrenaline rush of fleeing the factory town and hiking another entire day, he was more than ready to find somewhere he could get some rest. He just hoped the mansion’s owners would be welcoming.

He wasn’t halfway up the hill when the back door opened, and he froze in surprise. Warm, orange light spilled out across the hillside, creating a silhouette of a man standing in the doorway. Toris debated running, when the figure stepped out and, without the light right behind him, Toris could see his smile in the gloom.

“You look lost,” he commented. “Here, come in won’t you?”

He gestured to the door, and Toris followed a little apprehensively. Something about this man felt… off. He didn’t quite smell right, not like a human. There was something metallic in his scent, almost coppery.

“Thank you,” he said, following the man inside.

He was welcomed into a warmly lit kitchen, with a fire going in a grated fireplace and candles illuminating the more reclusive corners of the room. Other than the fireplace and the countertops though, there didn’t seem to be any furniture, and even with the fire going, Toris felt an odd chill in the air.

“Here, take a seat,” the man said, hauling over a large pile of blankets and dropping it in front of the fireplace. “Sorry for the lack of chairs, we live pretty bare-bones here.”

“I don’t mind,” Toris said, gratefully sitting on the pile of blankets and letting his feet rest.

“I’m Eduard,” the man added, sitting cross-legged on a large cushion beside him. “And you are?”

“Toris. Thank you, again, for letting me in.”

Eduard smiled to himself. “Well, you’re welcome, but it wasn’t my idea.” He shifted on his seat, facing Toris with his elbows propped on his knees, chin resting on his clasped hands.

“So, Toris,” he said. “I think you and I both know that neither of us is human.”

Toris gaped at him. “How did you…?”

“I know what human blood smells like,” Eduard replied. “And you smell far more… canid than any human I’ve ever met. Speaking of which,” he gestured to his own chin. “You’ve got something smeared there.”

Toris flushed, rubbing the dried rabbit blood from his face. “Fine, yes, I’m a werewolf,” he grumbled. He took another look at Eduard, and reasoned that the red glint in his eyes was not light reflecting from the fire. “And with your fondness for blood, I assume you must be a vampire.”

Eduard laughed, and Toris saw a glimpse at his fangs. “You’d assume correctly.”

His gaze lifted suddenly, looking up past Toris, and his smile became gentler. “It’s alright, Raivis, he’s like us.”

Toris blinked, puzzled, and turned to face the upper corner of the kitchen. For a moment, all he could see were cobwebs and rafters, until something white and wispy caught his eye, and he realized he was looking up at a nearly transparent boy floating half-way out the wall.

“Oh, ah,” he said, mildly taken aback. “Hello.”

The boy, Raivis he assumed, smiled shyly and slipped closer to the floor. “Hi.” He fiddled with his hands and shifted on his feet. “I, um, I’m sorry if we scared you,” he mumbled.

“I’m… a bit startled,” Toris admitted. “But frankly, I don’t know why I’m surprised. I turn into a howling monster every full moon, I should have figured ghosts and vampires existed too.” Not to mention, he was far less afraid of them as he had been of the gun-wielding mob that had come after him earlier that day.

Eduard and Raivis both laughed, and it made him smile.

His stomach rumbled suddenly, and his face flushed again.

“I, ah, don’t suppose you’ve got any food you’d be willing to share?” he asked, a little embarrassed. “I haven’t eaten since last night.”

“Hm, do you like duck?” Eduard asked.

“I haven’t tried it, but I’m sure I would.”

“What about raw duck drained of all of its blood?”

It was so blunt, it actually made Toris laugh. “You know what, yes, I think that will still work just fine.”

Eduard stood and made his way out of the kitchen, and Raivis came and knelt on Toris’s opposite side.

“I saw you outside,” he said quietly. “I thought you were just a regular human who’d gotten lost, and I wanted to help but I didn’t want us to scare you.”

Toris smiled gently. “Well, I’m very grateful you and Eduard welcomed me inside. After the day I’ve had, it’s nice to be treated with some kindness.”

Raivis looked up at him curiously. “What happened?”

Toris huffed. “I essentially got chased out of my job and my home by an angry mob.”

“How on Earth did that happen?”

Eduard had come back, holding a dead mallard by the feat, most of its feathers torn off. Toris felt a little embarrassed that he started salivating. Eduard seemed to notice.

“Here, tell us later. Eat something for now.”

He passed over the duck and Toris accepted it gratefully. “Oh, bless you.”

Eduard snorted to himself. “A little late for that, I think.”

Toris dug his teeth into the duck’s flesh and tearing out a large chunk. It was dry with most of the blood gone, but it was relatively fresh meat regardless, and he eagerly tore off more bites.

“So,” he said between mouthfuls. “Do you two live here?”

“‘Live’ is a relative term,” Eduard mused, and Raivis giggled.

Flustered, Toris swallowed quickly. “Oh, oh no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean like-”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Eduard said calmly.

“Your sense of humor gets a little morbid when you’re like this anyway,” Raivis added. “But, yes, this is our home. See, I was brought here with the family I served…”

Toris listened raptly as the two shared their stories. Once he had his fill of the duck, he sat curled around his bag, smiling with them at the good memories and feeling sympathetic at the bad ones. It was comforting too, in a way, meeting these two people, kept mostly isolated from humanity, who’d still managed to carve out their own home with each other. For the first time since he got on that boat, he felt like he belonged again.

Between the warm fire, the big meal, and the good company, Toris felt his eyes growing heavy before long, and struggled to fight back a yawn.

“Why don’t you spend the night?” Eduard suggested, standing and taking the stripped duck carcass with him. “I’m afraid we’ve only got the one bed, though…”

“I’ll be fine here,” Toris said, stealing Eduard’s cushion and adding it to his pile of blankets. Far cozier than the cots in his apartment, especially by the fireplace.

Raivis fidgeted with his long sleeves, then floated over to Eduard, whispering something into his ear. Eduard looked thoughtful, then smiled and nodded, while Toris looked up at the pair curiously.

“If you don’t have anywhere else to go,” Raivis said, turning to face him. “Did you, um, want to stay here? With us?”

Toris blinked in surprise. “Do you mean that? Really?”

“Well, yeah,” Raivis replied. “This house… it’s too big for just two people, you know? Especially when one of them isn’t even corporeal.”

“I… well… I’ll have to think about it,” Toris mused.

“Of course,” Eduard said. “No rush, no pressure.”

“You really look like you need some sleep, anyways,” Raivis added.

“Yes, I…” Toris cut himself off with a yawn. “Ah, excuse me… I think I do need some sleep.”

“Rest well, then,” Eduard said. “Come find either of us if you need anything, alright?”

“Maybe come find me if you wake up during the day,” Raivis said. “Trying to get this one out of bed before sundown is not an easy task.”

Eduard scoffed as he turned to leave the room. “I am not that lazy and you know it.”

“I’m not saying you’re lazy,” Raivis chuckled floating out after him. “Just that you sleep like the dead is all.”

“…really, Raivis?”

Toris settled down among the pile of blankets, shifting them around to form a make-shift nest, and laughed softly to himself as the other two’s voices faded into the rest of the house. Truth be told, he already knew what his answer was to Raivis’s question, he just didn’t want to make a rash decision on almost no sleep.

He absolutely wanted to stay.

_Someone needs to get this house in better condition, anyways,_ he thought to himself, looking at the sparse kitchen through half-lidded eyes. _Can’t just let these two keep living “bare-bones” after all._

He wondered if the bit of money he’d brought with him would be enough to afford them some proper chairs to sit in, huddled nice and cozy around the fireplace. He watched the orange fire flicker behind the grate before his eyelids got too heavy and he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did take one major creative liberty here; if I'm remembering my statistics right, about 1/3 of factory workers in America in the late 1800s and early 1900s were immigrants, mostly from southern and eastern Europe. So, realistically, Toris would be among plenty of other workers who'd just gotten off the boat, buuuut for the sake of the theme of loneliness, I had him being the only foreigner in the factory town.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say, huge thanks to everyone who's left comments so far. Since I was writing this for an event, I had the whole fic finished before I started posting it, and that hasn't given me much opportunity to reply to individual comments between chapters. But, I really do appreciate all of you who are invested in this little story, and who've left such nice comments already! I hope you all enjoy the rest of this! <3

“Feeling better now that you’ve eaten?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Alfred said, passing his empty plate over to Toris. “It’s was pretty good, too.”

Toris smiled, looking pleased, and headed towards the bedroom door. “Let me just put the dishes away, and I’ll come help you downstairs.”

He closed the door behind him, leaving Alfred and Feliks alone.

“So,” Feliks said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “You’ll be on your way soon, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

“How badly are you gonna kick your roommate’s ass over this?” Feliks laughed.

Alfred snorted. “Depends how sincere his apology is. If he apologizes at all.”

“Wow. Sounds like a jerk.”

“No, he’s not that bad,” Alfred said quickly. “I just meant that he’s not good with words, ‘mushy stuff,’ he calls it. He probably won’t literally say ‘sorry,’ but he’ll feel bad and buy me pizza or something to make up for it.”

He tipped his head back against the bed board with a sardonic grin. “Man, he’s never gonna believe any of this…”

“So you are going to tell him.”

Alfred looked up and saw Feliks was looking at him with a hard expression, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a thin line. His tone wasn’t conversational anymore, and Alfred felt his stomach twist with nerves.

“I, uh, I mean…” he fumbled, wondering if demons could tell when someone was lying.

The door opened again, making him jump.

“Alright, let’s get you out of here then-” Toris said cheerfully, but Feliks cut him off abruptly by standing up and taking his arm.

“Hey, I need you to help me out with my glimmer first,” he said quickly.

Toris looked confused. “What do you need my help for?”

“I just _do,_ okay?!” Feliks said, giving his arm an urgent tug towards the door.

Toris looked between the two of them, brows furrowing when he faced Alfred, who swallowed anxiously.

“We’ll be right back,” Toris said, before letting Feliks lead him into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

Alfred fell back on the bed and pressed his hands over his face, groaning with dread. “I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked…”

_Of course_ it was too good to be true. _Of course_ they’d want to protect themselves and their home. _Of course_ they wouldn’t let him go so he could open his big mouth and tell everyone about their existence.

Stiffly, he tried to sit up and move his leg, managing to bend his knee and put just a bit of pressure on his foot, gritting his teeth with a muffled yell as pain shot up from his ankle. He tried again, hands balled into fists in the bedsheets as he tried to shift sideways and put his foot on the ground, but as soon as he put any weight on it his vision went white and his brain turned dizzy from the pain.

There was no way he was getting out of here under his own power, he realized, hands starting to shake as he collapsed against the bed. He was completely at their mercy.

“…should we do?”

His head snapped up as he heard Feliks’s voice, faint but distinguishable, coming from the wall beside the bed. He scooted over, carefully, and shifted the sheets aside to peer between the bed and the wall. There was an old brass grate in the floor, probably a leftover from when the mansion was originally built. It must have linked up to whichever room Feliks had dragged Toris to. He leaned closer, turning his ear to the grate, and listened hard.

“You’re not suggesting we force him to stay,” he heard Toris say.

“No, no, of course not!” Feliks replied. “Dude’s way out of my jurisdiction anyway, his worst sin is probably his potty mouth. I can’t make him do anything.”

Alfred was a little surprised to hear Eduard’s voice next. “Can you do anything to his memory? Make him forget the last few hours?”

“Not without wiping his whole brain or something like that,” Feliks said. “I’m telling you, humans and demon magic do _not_ mix.”

“You’re sure we can’t trust him to keep quiet?” Raivis’s voice asked.

“Would you be able to keep quiet about something like this?” Eduard asked.

“No…”

“We don’t even know that anyone would believe him,” Toris mused. “Humans don’t believe in things like us as much as they used to.”

“And if someone _does_ believe him, we’re screwed,” Feliks argued. “I don’t doubt there’s some who’ll leave us alone, but you get one person who decides to be a hero and can whip up an angry mob and we’re done for.”

“So, what do you think we should do with him?” Eduard pressed.

“I don’t know, alright!” Feliks said, sounding exasperated. “He’s a good guy and we should help him get home, but how can anyone keep a secret like that!?”

There was a long, silent pause.

“He wouldn’t have to keep it a secret if there was no one here to find,” Raivis said, so soft Alfred almost didn’t hear him.

“What do you mean?” Toris asked.

“I mean… Feliks has a point. If anyone brings holy water, garlic, or silver here you guys are in trouble. You could get really hurt. But, well, there’s not really much anyone could do to me, you know? All I’d have to do is just… fade out of sight.”

“Raivis-”

“S-so if he tells someone,” Raivis continued, his voice shaky even as he cut off Eduard. “I’d be fine. They couldn’t hurt me. B-but you’d need t-to find somewhere safe, f-far away-”

“No,” Feliks said flatly. “No, no, no, _no._ ”

“Raivis, we are not leaving this house, and we are not leaving you,” Toris said, voice stern.

“With what this place does to you?” Eduard added. “We can’t let you stay here all alone, not anymore.”

“…I-” Raivis made a muffled noise, like a small hiccup, and sniffed. “You guys… Th-thank you, so much… B-but what will you all do?”

“We’ll stay together,” Toris said. “And if we have to face humans again, we’ll do that together too.”

“Who knows?” Feliks added. “Maybe I’m wrong and they’ll be totally chill.”

“Whatever happens, we won’t let them make us leave you,” Eduard said.

Raivis sniffed again. “Can we really do that without hurting anyone though?”

All four were silent for a moment, and Toris sighed heavily.

“We’ll try our hardest.”

Alfred rolled over and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He rubbed a hand over his face, his chest tight and heavy, and let out a deep breath. _Holy hell…_

Footsteps came back down the hall a few moments later, and the door swung open again. Feliks stepped in, a slightly awkward smile on his face, lacking his horns, wings, and tail. Alfred realized he must have had the glimmer on already. That would explain the bright pink jogging shorts.

“Hey, sorry about the wait,” he said, a little too casually, as Toris entered behind him.

“What was that about?” Alfred asked apprehensively.

Feliks laughed, and sounded nervous. “Ah, y’know, sometimes you just need a second pair of hands to help with casting.”

Alfred looked at Toris, but he didn’t meet his eyes.

“Here, uh, lemme grab your stuff,” Feliks said quickly, grabbing Alfred’s phone and jacket off the nightstand.

Toris fidgeted by the door, looking firmly at the wall by Alfred’s head. “So, I’ll help you up, okay?”

“Alright.”

Toris still didn’t look at him as he knelt beside the bed, nor when he slung Alfred’s arm over his shoulder, or even as he rose up and pulled Alfred to his feet. His expression looked guilty, Alfred noticed, and he wondered if he felt bad about talking about him in secret like that. Alfred wondered if he should mention that he’d overheard much of the conversation, but part of him decided against it. He was almost out now, he wouldn’t have to worry about any of this soon. He didn’t want to drag this out any longer.

Same as Eduard, Toris seemed much stronger than he looked, easily supporting Alfred’s weight down the hall and towards the stairs, Feliks trailing behind them.

“Glad you only brought me up to the second floor,” Alfred joked, relieved to see he just had one set of stairs to get down.

“Oh, um, yeah,” Toris said, laughing weakly.

The awkward silence returned as they descended, interrupted by a slightly pained grunt from Alfred or directions from Toris on when to move his good foot. Feliks stayed silent too, walking patiently behind them.

“Well, here we are,” Toris said as they reached the front door, opening it with his free hand. “Here now, take a seat on the porch.”

Alfred slid awkwardly to the floor of the porch, shivering in the chilly October air. He kind of wished there was a deckchair out with him, but that would probably ruin the illusion that the house was abandoned. Feliks passed him his jacket and he pulled it on gratefully, tucking his phone and flashlight into his pocket. His thumb lingered on the side of his phone for a moment, and he wondered again if the videos he’d taken were salvageable. He wondered if he should even try.

“I’ll uh, go find a car then,” Feliks mumbled, jerking his thumb vaguely towards the road and heading down the hill.

“And I’d better get the house in order,” Toris added, fingers fidgeting. “Or, out of order, rather. Make sure it looks abandoned. Will you be okay out here?”

“Huh?” Alfred looked up. “Oh, uh, yeah, I’ll be fine.”

He smiled, and hoped it was convincing. Toris’s smile looked just as forced.

_He doesn’t trust me at all._

_Can I blame him?_

“Well, goodbye then,” Toris said, turning back into the house.

“Uhm, thanks,” Alfred said quickly. “Again. For helping me.”

“Oh, uh, of course,” Toris said stiffly. There was an undertone there, something slightly desperate, _don’t make me regret it, please._ Alfred wasn’t sure if he was imagining it.

“Take care.”

The door swung shut before Alfred could respond.

He slumped against the wall with a heavy sigh, pushing his fingers under his glasses to rub his eyes. He should have just told Gilbert to fuck off to begin with…

“Hey.”

He jumped, looking up. Raivis was floating above him, part way out the wall. He looked less solid out in the sunlight, fainter, but Alfred could still see the conflicted expression on his face.

“Uh, hey,” he replied.

Raivis hesitated, then slipped out of the wall and floated to sit in front of Alfred, hands curled into loose fists on his knees.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“…alright, considering the circumstances,” Alfred said, which was honestly the truth. His ankle hurt, but rest and cold packs had done it a lot of good, plus the promise of leaving soon kept his spirits high.

Raivis didn’t say anything for a while, looking at the floor and twisting his fingers together.

“I… I’m so sorry this happened,” he said finally. “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. I just… I thought I could make up for s-scaring people by helping them have fun and now…”

He trailed off, thin shoulders shaking.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Alfred said abruptly.

Raivis looked up at him, surprised. “What?”

“About the house. About you guys. I’m not telling anyone anything.”

Yes, it would absolutely eat it up inside, and yes, he’d be plagued for the rest of his life with questions he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to.

But, keeping this weird little patchwork family of monsters together would be well worth it.

“Y-you really won’t-”

Footsteps came rushing up the path towards the hill, Feliks jogging back up to meet him with a middle-aged couple in tow. Alfred heard a small gasp and turned just in time to see Raivis fall through the porch and vanish from sight.

“Yeah, I think he broke his ankle,” he could hear Feliks saying as they got closer. “Said he was out here all night.”

“Jeez, poor guy,” the shorter of the two men said, grimacing as he looked up at Alfred. “Are you alright?” he called.

“Feeling better already,” Alfred said with a wry smile. “Just happy I’m not stuck at the bottom of the stairs anymore.”

“Well, we’ll get you to a hospital right away!” the shorter man said. “Ber, help me get him up.”

The taller man, “Ber,” nodded with a grunt, and for the third time in less than twenty-four hours, Alfred found himself being manhandled and hauled up by the shoulders.

They carried him down the path together, Feliks following close behind them. Alfred twisted his head to look over his shoulder, making eye contact with him, and noticed Feliks quickly looked away, his face tight and strained in the same way Toris’s was.

The couple loaded Alfred into the back of their little blue compact, arranging him carefully to avoid jostling his ankle, while Feliks hovered nearby, nervously twisting his fingers. Alfred wanted to say something to him, make the same promise he’d made to Raivis, tell him to make sure Eduard also knew how grateful he was, do something to reassure him that this wasn’t going to come back to bite them. But, with the two older men fussing over him, there was no way he’d be able to say anything that blatant.

So, he smiled wide, said, “Thanks, man, for everything,” and hoped Feliks got the message.

If he did, he didn’t look convinced, backing away from the car as the door was slammed shut.

Alfred twisted to look through the back windshield as the car headed off towards town, vaguely listening to the shorter man reassure him that they’d get him to a hospital as quick as possible. All he saw were green wisps of fire floating in the air where Feliks had been, which quickly dissipated. Alfred’s eyes followed the path winding up the hill to the old mansion, looking as cold and empty as ever, windows black even in the daytime. None of the candles that had warmly lit the bedroom he slept in were visible in the darkness inside, and nothing but the rusty weather vane on the roof moved. Alfred’s eyes darted from window to window, looking for a pale face or some glowing eyes peering back out at him, but he saw nothing.

The car followed a curve in the road and the mansion disappeared behind the trees, obscured by red and orange leaves. Alfred sighed and turned in his seat, and just hoped the house’s residents could live there peacefully.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No new warnings for this chapter, just the usual dead/undead characters.

“Lord, I hate going into town,” Toris grumbled, leaning on the door and shutting it behind him. 

“Toris? Is that you?”

“Who else?” he replied, adjusting the package in his arms and heading for the parlor. He found Raivis there, floating a few inches above a worn velvet couch, a book propped open on the cushions underneath him.

“Is everything alright?”

Toris huffed, leaving the package on the coffee table and dropping into a lumpy arm chair, running a hand through his hair.

“I’ll be fine,” he mumbled, rubbing a thumb against his temple. “It’s just so _loud_ in town, I’ve always got a headache by the time I leave.”

“Can I get you some painkillers?”

Toris shook his head and regretted it, feeling his skull throb. He put on a brave smile regardless. “No, it’s alright, I don’t want to trouble you.”

“It’s no trouble!” Raivis insisted, floating off the couch. “Really, let me try.”

He rose up through the ceiling before Toris could say anything else, and Toris slid a little further into his chair. He wanted to encourage Raivis, really, but with Eduard holed up in his bedroom until after sundown, he knew he’d be stuck cleaning up any messes Raivis accidentally made. Any other day, he wouldn’t have minded, but after his trip into town, all he wanted to do was spend the rest of the night in the armchair.

A few moments later, he heard the sounds of something small rattling and water sloshing, and leaned forward to glance into the foyer. Raivis was floating down the stairs, hands raised, his gaze focused intently on the bottle of pills and half-full glass of water floating before him. 

“A-almost there,” he stuttered, flashing a wobbly smile at Toris while he struggled to keep the glass upright. Toris just hopped the lid of the bottle wasn’t about to fly off and shoot pills everywhere. Not that he didn’t trust Raivis, just that today of all days, he really didn’t feel like crawling around looking for bits of medicine that had flown across the room.

Grumpy as he was, he still felt a rush of pride as Raivis floated through the doorway to the parlor, reaching up and grabbing the bottle and glass as Raivis dropped them.

“That was very well done,” he said, managing a smile as he popped open the bottle and poured out a couple pills. “You’re getting better.”

Raivis beamed, only looking slightly bashful. “I was reading while you were out too! Look!”

He gestured at the book left on the couch, his brows furrowing in concentration. A page twitched, and then flipped over. Raivis turned back to him with a wide smile, but the book suddenly shot off the couch and threw itself under the coffee table, sliding and spinning until it hit the opposite wall. Raivis yelped in surprise, clapping his hands over his mouth and jumping back. 

“Well,” Toris said. “You’re still practicing.” He gave Raivis an encouraging grin. “You’ll get it soon, I’m sure.”

Raivis smiled back at him weakly. “Y-yeah, one day I will. Um, what’s that, by the way?”

Toris looked at the package left on the table. “Ah, that.”

He took a swig of water and downed the painkillers, then leaned forward and pulled the package into his lap. “You know I was looking for a glass case, right?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’ve finally found the perfect one.”

He pulled apart the paper padding out the bundle, revealing a wooden box with a glass lid, lined with faded red velvet inside.

“Is that for your rosary?”

Toris nodded. “Maybe it’s silly, being what I am now,” he mused. “But, I still can’t bear to part with it, even though it hurts me. Eduard too, for that matter.”

“It’s not silly,” Raivis said, peering over his shoulder at the box. “I think it’s nice you have something special like that.”

Toris gave him a smile. It did feel strange, keeping such a sacred object around when he himself had become a monster, but it still brought him comfort, even though it could kill him. It might have possibly been the only thing that could do him any harm anymore. It took a few years for him to notice, but he realized he hadn’t aged since he was bitten in the factory town. On top of that, any bumps or injuries he got while running out in the woods barely fazed him, and disappeared once he changed back. And yet, even as an apparently-immortal transforming creature, it was still nice to think that he had something protecting him, his new home, and his new friends

“Thanks. In any case, I thought this would be a good way to keep it without leaving it in a desk drawer. I can still display it, but it’s not at risk of anybody accidentally touching it.”

“Clever,” Raivis smiled.

Toris stood up, holding the box carefully. “It’s thanks to you I can afford it,” he added. “That was some great foresight on your part.”

Raivis laughed, abashed. He wouldn’t call forgetting about his secret stash of coins for a century “foresight” exactly, but he was glad that finding that old sock again had worked out for them. Who would have thought that a mixture of old American and European money would have been worth more to collectors than Lady Gerhardt’s jewelry supply?

Not that they were filthy rich by any means, but some careful budgeting by Eduard and some interior design planning by Toris meant that they had managed to turn the sparse old mansion into a relatively cozy, if mismatched, house filled with second-hand furniture and amenities. Even if he couldn’t use most of them properly, without worrying about flinging something across the room at least, Raivis much preferred living in the mansion now that is looked like an actual home.

“Here,” Toris bent down and picked up the book, holding it out to Raivis. “Keep practicing, I’m heading upstairs.”

Biting his lip, Raivis lifted his hands and the book steadily rose from Toris’s grip, flipping open to where he’d left off earlier. Toris smiled, leaving him to settle back on the couch as he headed back into the foyer and up the stairs.

Despite everything they’d added to the house in recent years, it was still a massive place, and was left sparse in some areas. They hadn’t bothered decorating or furnishing anything on the third floor, keeping the ground floor as a living space and putting together their own personal rooms on the second floor. Toris passed Eduard’s room, curiously pressing an ear to the door to see if he was awake. The bottom of the door was still blocked off by an old blanket, preventing any sunlight from peeking through, and he could hear soft, steady breaking through the wood. He still had to be asleep then, Toris figured, curled up in his pitch-black room until the sun had gone down. Toris had once asked how he knew the sun was down with his windows completely blocked off, but Eduard insisted he knew. An internal clock or something like that.

In any case, it wasn’t important for now. All Toris had wanted to do was let him know about the glass case, and that he didn’t have to tread so carefully if he went into Toris’s room anymore. He could tell him later.

Toris entered his bedroom with a relieved sigh. The painkillers were starting to work and being back in a familiar environment was helping ease his headache. It felt good to be home.

Like the rest of the house, his room was rather haphazardly furnished, with a second-hand bed and chair, along with a bookshelf and desk rebuilt from the scrap wood they’d cleared out of the third floor. They were crooked and a little wobbly, but Toris was proud of them regardless.

He set the box down on his desk, opening the top drawer and pushing aside scraps of paper and pencils, until he found his old handkerchief, still wrapped protectively around the silver cross. He lifted it carefully by the beads, placing it gently in the box and wrapping his fingers in the cloth, nudging the cross around until it was positioned properly and then shutting the box. He smiled at it through the glass, leaving the box on a corner of the desk, glad he could finally look at his precious little treasure without risking burning himself or Eduard with it.

Satisfied, he grabbed a book off his desk and dropped into the plush seat by the window, enjoying the orange sunlight streaming through the boards as he flicked through the historical novel, learning what he could about what had been going on in the outside world since he’d run away into the forest.

The sunlight eventually faded into moonlight, and though his eyes were sharp in the dark, he still lit a candle, enjoying the comforting flicker of the firelight. His sensitive ears picked up movement down the hall and he figured Eduard had to be waking up. He was considering asking if he wanted to go out into the forest with him tonight to hunt together, when another sound reached him through the boarded-up window. Giggling, multiple pairs of feet stumbling up the path towards the house, and music blaring from one of those newfangled 8-track players. 

Toris growled in his throat and tipped his head back in exasperation. 

“Kids...”

He quickly snuffed out his candle and rose from his chair, leaving his book on the bed and heading out into the hall. He knocked on Eduard’s door, a grimace on his face as it cracked open. 

“Hm?” Eduard blinked sleepily at him.

“We’ve got visitors,” he said bluntly. “Coming up the path now.”

Eduard blinked and sniffed the air, sighing as he picked up the scent of human blood. 

“It’s too early for this,” he grumbled, shrugging on a bathrobe and shuffling into the hall. “Does Raivis know yet?”

“I haven’t told him,” Toris replied, heading for the stairs, Eduard following close behind.

They found Raivis peering through the boards nailed over the front window, looking frustrated. “I was just getting the hang of folding the pages,” he griped, pouting down at the open book, several corners clumsily dog-eared. 

“You can pick it up again tomorrow,” Eduard said. “For now, we need to hide.”

Raivis grumbled and floated through the walls, blowing out the candles lighting the rest of the house with a cold gust of wind. Toris dumped a bucket of dirt onto the fire, which they kept handy just for such cases, plunging the kitchen into darkness. Eduard handled the doors, making sure they were all locked and hoping none of the kids would try breaking them down. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened. The only reason he didn’t lock the front door was because that would probably just result in the boards being torn off the windows. What was it about their creepy old house that made people want to break into so bad anyways? He didn’t understand kids these days.

They met up on the third floor, the entire house dark and seemingly empty, hiding them well in the shadows near the ceiling. They peered over the banister, listening to the troupe of laughing intruders approach their home.

“They’re drinking,” Toris said, wrinkling his nose. “I can already smell the alcohol.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Eduard huffed. “I’m sure they’ll only make the best decisions when they’re inebriated.”

“I just hope they don’t go off and have sex this time,” Raivis mumbled, grimacing at the memory. 

“What are you complaining about, it was my bed they went to,” Toris growled. It was worth taking a trip into town to get some bleach for that. 

The front door shook and then fell open, a teenage boy falling in and the rest of the group laughing behind him. They filtered in, six of them, most of them carrying half-empty bottles or boxes filled with cans, wobbly on their feet and snickering at nothing.

“Do you think I would get tipsy if I drank from one of them?” Eduard mused out loud. Toris covered his mouth with a muffled snort, but Raivis didn’t think it was funny.

“You won’t actually, will you?” he hissed. Annoyed as he was, he didn’t want anyone getting hurt.

“No, of course not,” Eduard assured him. Although, with this being the twelfth time this had happened in less than three years, the idea was getting tempting.

“I _just_ mopped that floor,” Toris groaned, watching them trail dirt from the path across the foyer and into the adjoining rooms.

“Oh come on, show a little respect,” Eduard grumbled as one of the kids ran back into the foyer, wearing the stag head that he had spent painstaking hours taxidermizing like a hat.

“Don’t they have anything better to do?” Raivis pouted, wincing as a pair of them started rattling the all the doors on the second floor.

One of them, a girl, suddenly called the rest back to the foyer, and pulled a large, black, leather-bound book from her bag.

Despite themselves, the trio hiding up on the third floor were intrigued.

“Well, this is new,” Toris mused.

“What do you think they’re doing?” Ravis asked, fidgeting with his sleeves.

“Hush,” Eduard hissed. “Listen.”

The girl was excitedly showing the rest of the group the book now, flipping it open and showing them the pages inside, which seemed to be covered with detailed illustrations of diagrams and symbols.

The group of teenagers, still clutching their alcohol and snickering, began digging in her bag, pulling out large black candles and placing them in a circle, while she fumbled with a piece of chalk and drew lines between the candles, scribbling incomprehensible words between them. She kept glancing back at the book, then drawing the next portion.

“Are they serious?” Toris mumbled in slight disbelief.

“Why, what are they doing?” Eduard asked.

“It looks like they’re making a summoning circle,” Toris explained. “Supposedly, you can call demons with it and make them do your bidding.”

Raivis’s eye widened. “That sounds incredibly dangerous.”

“Who would do that?” Eduard asked.

“Apparently some dumb kids looking for a thrill,” Toris grumbled, grimacing down at the group as they started lighting the candles. “I’m not sure I would have believed summoning circles even worked a few decades ago, but after what I’ve seen-”

He was interrupted by a loud, shrill laugh from down below, and the three peered over the banister again, watching with some trepidation as the group of giggly teenagers sat around the flickering candles and chalk circle, legs crossed and holding hands. They looked as tipsy and silly as ever, apparently not giving a second thought to what they were about to attempt.

The girl was now reading from the book in horribly butchered Latin, fumbling the words and laughing, before she took another drink and tried again.

Raivis suddenly felt… odd. Something was buzzing in the air, through his incorporeal body, and a dark feeling of dread welled up in his gut. 

“Do you guys feel that too?” Eduard said in a hushed voice, feeling a tremor in his hands and legs that he couldn’t explain.

Toris nodded silently, a faint ringing starting in his ears and sending chills down the back of his skull.

The circle suddenly erupted in bright green fire, the group of teenagers falling back with shrieks and screams, letting go of each other's hands. Up on the third floor, the three observers in the shadows leapt back too, the entire front of the house illuminated by green light. The fire spread, consuming the candles and the book sitting between them, and the group of teenagers bolted, stumbling over each other in their rush for the front door.

Before they’d even left, Toris, Raivis, and Eduard were already streaking down to the foyer. Forget the possibility of demons, they just didn’t want their house burning down. In a move mostly driven by panic, Raivis lobbed a massive gust of cold air at the column of fire, billowing the bright green flames and forcing them to dissipate. Before he could even feel proud of himself, he stopped in midair, Eduard and Toris screeching to a halt beside him, staring at what was left behind by the flames.

And he was staring right back at them.

“Uhm…” the figure, short and slender with straight blond hair, blinked. He looked about as taken aback as they did, even though he was the one sporting jet black horns on his head, bat-like wings, and a spaded tail swinging behind him.

They were all silent for a long moment, until the figure huffed, placing his hands on his hips.

“Okay, yeah? Can I help you?”

Raivis made a small noise and Toris glanced nervously at Eduard, who took a deep breath and stepped forward.

“Ah, hello there,” he said, giving a shaky smile. “It, uh, seems you’ve been summoned here.”

The demon rolled his eyes. “No duh. Look, I get it, this is a super intimidating and awe-inspiring moment for you humans and all-” He cut himself off, doing a double-take, and his eyebrows raised. “Huh. You guys aren’t human, are ya? Well, whatever, the point is I got places to be so let’s just strike the deal and get on with it, okay?”

Eduard took a few steps back, looking a little helpless, and Toris coughed into his hand. “Well, see, we didn’t summon you.” 

The demon’s eyes widened. “What? Are you serious? Who did then?” 

“It was a group of humans,” Eduard explained. 

“Well, where are they now?!” the demon demanded, looking frightened.

Eduard and Toris looked at each other, confused, and Raivis nervously piped up, “Th-they ran when you arrived.”

The demon stepped forward, expression livid and hands shaking. “And you didn’t stop them!?”

Toris bristled, shifting to put himself between the demon and his two housemates. Even as a werewolf, he doubted he could take down a demon. Eduard and Raivis probably stood a better chance than him anyway, but a part of him still drove him to protect his adopted pack. “We were more concerned with our home burning down, to be honest,” he growled.

To his surprise, the demon turned away, wailing and pressing his clawed hands over his face.

“No, no, no, no!” he groaned, stomping his feet and scattering the dark green ash left where the circle had been. “No, dammit, why me?!”

The three monsters glanced at each other awkwardly, unsure of what to do about the demon having a breakdown in front of them. Eventually, Raivis swallowed thickly and floated forward. “Um, are you okay?”

“Do I _look_ okay?!” the demon demanded, spinning back around. Raivis flinched and shrunk back, hands over his mouth timidly.

The demon blinked, then sighed and shook his head. “No, no, that was super not cool, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, wiping his hair out of his face. “It’s just, like, I can’t go home unless the people who summoned me here send me home. So, now I’m totally stuck, can you imagine how lousy that feels?”

“Yes, actually,” Raivis said flatly. “I died in this house, and I haven’t been able to leave it in a hundred years.”

“Oh.” The demon shifted awkwardly on his feet. “That, uh, that sucks. Sorry.”

There was a long stretch of silence, only broken by the old house creaking in the wind.

“So, what’s your name?” Raivis finally asked.

“Well, my real name would make mortal ears bleed,” the demon shrugged. “I dunno what it would do to you guys, but it probably wouldn’t be great. So, just call me Feliks.”

“Feliks, okay. I’m Raivis, this is Toris and Eduard.”

Feliks leaned to the side, looking past Raivis and waving at the other two. “Uh, hey guys. Sorry to bust into your place like this.”

Toris pursed his lips, looking down at the mess of spilled drinks, cans, and bottles the teenagers had left in their rush to escape. “It’s not your fault, I suppose.”

“Still… not exactly how I planned to spend my night,” Feliks mumbled, rocking on his heels. “Probably not what you guys had planned, either.”

Toris eyed him carefully. He did seem genuinely apologetic, and he couldn’t really blame him for being upset.

“Listen,” he suggested. “Why don’t you go take a seat in the parlor. We’ll clean up in here, and then we can talk about this.”

“Oh, clean up?” Feliks asked. “Here, let me help.”

With a gesture of his hand, the abandoned cans and bottles went up in green fire, vanishing into the air, along with the ashes and dirty footprints.

“Is that really safe to do in a wooden house?” Eduard asked skeptically.

“Don’t worry, it’s like ethereal fire,” Feliks said casually. “Super easy to control if you can use magic.”

“Er, right,” Eduard mumbled. “Here, the parlor’s this way. Toris, would you mind making coffee?”

“Not at all.”

Toris split off and headed for the kitchen while Eduard and Raivis led Feliks off to the parlor. He set a metal kettle on the stove and started it boiling and pulled two mugs from the cupboard. Even if their diets were mostly made of raw meat and blood these day, he and Eduard did occasionally indulge in human food, and coffee was a shared favorite. Raivis couldn’t eat or drink anything, but he said he enjoyed the smell. After some hesitation, Toris pulled a third mug from the cupboard. He didn’t know if demons ate or drank, but it only felt polite to offer coffee to a guest.

Balancing the three mugs on a tarnished metal tray, Toris entered the parlor. The candles had been relit and Eduard was adjusting the stag head back onto its wall mount. Feliks was sitting on the armchair, knees up and twisting his fingers together, the tip of his tail swinging anxiously. Without the blaze of green fire around him, he looked significantly more introverted than before, and Toris couldn’t help but feel sympathy for him. Raivis seemed to feel the same, as he stayed hovering closely beside the armchair.

“Hey, is that that coffee stuff?” Feliks asked, looking curious as Toris placed the tray on the table.

“Yes, it is,” Toris said, picking up his mug. “Do demons eat and drink?”

Feliks shrugged. “Not usually, but I’ll give it a shot.” He reached out and accepted the mug Toris passed to him.

“Careful, it’s hot,” Eduard warned, taking a seat on the couch and picking up his mug.

“Uh, fire and brimstone, I think I’m good,” Feliks smirked, and took a big swig from the mug. His eyes went wide and he made a muffled noise, pulling the mug away and staring at it.

Toris winced. “Sorry, it’s a bit of an acquired taste-”

“No way, this stuff is great!” Feliks gushed, taking another big gulp. “Man, can you just, like, make this for me forever? I would be so happy!”

Toris blinked, flattered and a little flustered, and coughed. “Well, ah, I’m glad you like it, but we really should talk about what to do next.”

“Mm, right,” Feliks said, placing his empty mug back on the table. “So. Don’t suppose you guys know anything about summoning circles, huh?”

“Only that they call demons,” Toris said. “Nothing about actually constructing them.”

“The people who summoned you had a book they were copying,” Eduard explained. “But it got burned up in the fire.”

“Of _course_ it did,” Feliks huffed, blowing his bangs out of his face.

“Is there any other way to get you home without using a circle?” Raivis asked.

“There’s a few, but they’re based on like, super rare and convoluted events. Like, a portal that only opens up during a total solar eclipse when Neptune’s aligned with Venus and a three-legged dog with six teeth walks past a cemetery or stuff like that.” Feliks folded his arms and shrugged. “It’s not easy for us to get to Earth without help. Or to leave, for that matter.”

“You really are stuck then, huh?” Eduard said. 

“Looks like it.”

He sighed, resting his coffee on the table and rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He chanced a glance at his house mates, wondering if they were on the same train of thought that he was on. Raivis almost certainly was; he formed connections with kindred spirits so easily, and had probably felt sympathetic towards Feliks ever since he’d said he was trapped. Toris, on the other hand, he wasn’t so sure about. Though he was the newest arrival to the house, he had taken on the role of a big brother in a way, protective and supportive of the other two. He could be distrustful, not paranoid, but cautious, as if always expecting trouble from strangers. Probably instilled in him during his time working at the factory, and even decades later, those habits hadn’t quite died off. He was compassionate, yes, but that came second to keeping his home and friends safe.

So he was rather surprised when Toris put his mug down and said, “Feliks, would you like to stay here?”

Apparently, Feliks was surprised too. “You mean it?” he asked.

“Well, if Eduard and Raivis approve,” Toris added. 

“I do!” Raivis said quickly. “It’s miserable being stuck all alone.”

“I suppose it makes the most sense,” Eduard mused. “We have no idea how many others like us there actually are out in the world.”

Toris nodded. “I never even met the werewolf who first bit me,” he admitted. “For all I know, they got killed by a hunter or something.”

“So if we just sent you on your way, you might not ever find anyone else like us,” Eduard continued. “Humans haven’t treated us well in general, and while I don’t doubt you can fend for yourself, it seems cruel to just throw you out into a hostile world.”

Feliks blinked, and laughed softly. “You know, being a demon, I never really expected to get treated this nicely here on Earth.”

“I think we’re all used to feeling unfairly vilified,” Toris smiled, showing his sharp teeth. “You deserve a chance, at the very least.”

“Man, you guys are great,” Feliks beamed. “Humans always get so freaked out when I show up, and then they blame me when things go wrong. Like, hello, use some common sense, of course a deal’s gonna go badly when demon magic’s involved! Hell, the only reason I even carry out deals is ‘cause they won’t leave me alone ‘till I do.”

“Speaking of which,” Raivis piped up. “Why did those kids summon you tonight anyway?”

Feliks shrugged. “You’d know better than me, you guys saw it happen. They were running screaming by the time I got here.”

“It didn’t seem like they wanted anything,” Eduard suggested. “They were drinking, and they just kept giggling about the whole thing.”

“Oh no, it was _those_ kinds of kids,” Feliks grumbled, rubbing his hands over his face.

“What kinds?”

“The ones who do these things for fun,” he said, turning to Toris. “They want thrills so they find these weird old books and try out mysterious rituals and then, gasp! It actually worked! Now you’ve gotta deal with a grumpy demon in your dorm room, jackass!”

Toris raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’ve been through that before.”

“So many times!” Feliks groaned. “And it’s only getting worse! Like, I used to be summoned by people who actually _wanted_ to make deals, right? And yeah, that was annoying but at least worth my time. But then there’s these dumb kids who just gawk at you once you show up and don’t have anything they want you to do!” He huffed, folding his arms and slumping down in the chair. “They’re easy to impress, at least. Do some pyrotechnics, make some furniture float, talk in a deep scary voice, they get the scare they’re looking for and they send you back home.”

“That actually kind of sounds like the sort of people who break in here all the time,” Raivis said thoughtfully. “Like, they’re looking to get scared, I mean.”

“Oh yeah?” Feliks asked. “Maybe you should give ‘em what they came here for. Play along, chase them around the house a little, you know?”

Raivis hummed to himself while Feliks turned and asked Toris about getting more coffee. If people really did want to get scared, then maybe it was worth playing along a bit...


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here we are, at the end. I hope you guys have enjoyed this little ride, it was my first multi-chapter fic in a long, _long_ time. Once again, huge thanks to everyone who commented and left kudos, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.  <3

Alfred made sure to get the names of the couple who’d picked him up and taken him to the hospital. He made sure to get it in writing too, because there was no way on Earth he’d ever be able to remember “Väinämöinen-Oxenstierna” without a little help. Once he had some money to spare, he’d be sure to send them something as thanks.

With the bone set and a prescription for painkillers in his pocket, he borrowed a hospital phone to call home. His brother picked up and, after hearing Alfred broke an ankle because of a dare, called him an idiot and passed the phone to their mother. She fretted and worried, asking if he wanted her to drive up and see him, but Alfred assured her he’d be fine. He did appreciate her offering to cover the hospital bills, though.

He called Gilbert next.

“Who’s this?” he grumbled bluntly, sounding half-asleep.

“Your roommate,” Alfred replied. “Morning, Gil.”

There was a thud on the other end of the line. “Wait, what?! Where the fuck are you!?”

“I’m in the hospital, dude.”

“WHAT?!” Alfred heard scrambling noises and keys jangling. “The fuck happened last night, you didn’t come back!”

_I got ambushed by monsters and broke an ankle jumping out a window trying to save my life but it turns out they weren’t trying to kill me and took care of me until the morning and they’re also pretty cool._

“I fell through some rotted stairs in that stupid house and broke an ankle,” he said flatly. “I was stuck there until a random jogger found me.”

“Shit man… hold tight, I’m on my way. Which hospital are you in?”

“The one on Fifth, past the library.”

“Got it, be there soon.”

Alfred sat in the waiting room, drumming his fingers against his new crutches, when he suddenly remembered something. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, examining the shattered screen and, on a whim, turned it on.

Much to his delight, he saw the glitchy mess that had been there before was gone, and his lock screen was right back where it should have been. He hesitated a second, then opened the photo gallery, playing the footage he’d gotten the previous night and watching it closely. Maybe it was just the crack in the screen warping the video, but he could have sworn he saw a pale hand drift in front of him as he panned around the parlor. Maybe Raivis was waving hello, he thought.

He let the video end and sighed, staring down at his phone in silence, before selecting all the videos and photos he took and deleting them. 

Gilbert wouldn’t care about that anymore, anyways.

Speak of the devil, he bustled into the waiting room wearing the same hoodie and pajama pants he’d had on last night and smelling strongly of energy drinks.

“You scared the shit out of me, you asshole!” he laughed, sounding a little manic as he reached Alfred and helped him to his feet. “I was up all night calling everyone to see if they knew where you were!”

Alfred smirked, balancing himself on his crutches. “Aww, so you do care!”

Gilbert punched him in the arm. “Of course I fucking care, you dipshit. Now get in the car, I’m buying you pizza.”

_Called it,_ Alfred thought with a smirk as he followed Gilbert out the entrance.

He returned to class the next day, getting some concerned questions about his foot, even though no one seemed particularly surprised he’d hurt himself doing a stupid dare. It made Alfred wonder what his reputation on campus was exactly. Life went on. Midterms came and went, he played video games too much and slept too little, he and Gilbert continued to display their friendship through insults and physical aggression, though Gilbert was noticeably less rough with him while he was on his crutches, which Alfred quietly appreciated.

Sometimes, during class, or studying, or lying in bed at night waiting to fall asleep, he’d be distracted from his normal life, and think about that crooked old mansion on the edge of town, and the monsters who lived there. Far from human, yet nothing but kind, taking him in and doing everything they could to fix their mistake. If he was in his room, he’d lean against the window and look out across town, to the trees in the distance, and wonder if the rickety shape he saw moving in the autumn wind was that rusty weathervane spinning around. He’d remember the conversation he wasn’t supposed to hear, and his stomach would twist with worry.

_I hope they believed me,_ he’d think. __I hope they didn’t leave.

\- - -

Raivis liked snow.

It was soothing, watching those soft, white flakes drift down from the sky and settle on the ground. It muffled the rest of the world, made everything quiet and serene, soft and still. 

Though the third floor was left empty, Raivis liked to come up here sometimes. The old master bedroom had a wonderful view of the backyard and surrounding woods, and Raivis could spend hours at a time, days even if no one came and got him, floating in the air and staring out the large windows, taking in the winter landscape outside, illuminated by the half-moon. It was the closest thing to warmth he’d felt since he died.

The stillness was interrupted by a shrill laugh as Feliks came tearing around the corner of the house, Toris not far behind him with a fistful of snow and a wicked grin. He took aim and hit Feliks right in the back, making him shriek in surprise and take off into the air, shaking snow off his wings.

“Cheater!” Toris barked, lobbing another snowball at him, which Feliks dodged easily, laughing. He yelped when Toris pounced at him with a growl, catching his legs and dragging him back down into the snow.

“Is it me, or does Toris turn into a were-puppy when it snows?”

Raivis glanced up to find Eduard beside him, smirking down at the back lawn. He chuckled.

“He’s relaxed, at least,” he replied. “More than he has been recently.”

Eduard’s smile slipped a little, and he hummed in agreement. They’d all been on edge lately, ever since the morning when they’d sent an injured and very confused human off down the road, and hoped he wouldn’t tell a soul about them. Raivis said he’d promised, and Eduard wanted to trust him, but there was still a large part of him expecting to see and angry and frightened mob of humans marching up to their house any day now, determined to protect their homes from the monsters within. The circular scar on his chest ached, and he rubbed it through his shirt. He might not be so lucky next time.

He was jarred out of his thoughts by a sudden sound, a heavy _knock knock knock_ that resonated through the whole house, coming from the front door.

“What was that?”

“Pft, don’t try to trick me!” Feliks scoffed, preparing to shove a handful of snow down the back of Toris’s jacket.

“No, I’m serious,” Toris insisted, speeding up the hill and towards the back door. Feliks dropped the snow and chased after him.

“You heard that, right?” Eduard asked when they met him at the base of the stairs, Raivis sinking down through the ceiling above them. “The knocking?”

Feliks’s eyes widened. “Someone’s at the door?”

“We need to hide,” Toris said quickly. “We can’t play along like last time, it’s too risky-”

“Hey, uh, you guys in there?”

They all went silent, turning to stare at the door.

Outside, Alfred shifted awkwardly on his heels, being careful not to put too much weight on his right side. The bone was healed, but it still felt tender.

“It’s me, Alfred,” he tried again. “I’m the dumbass who jumped out a window, remember?”

He still got no response, and bit his lip anxiously. The bag he was carrying hung heavily from his hand, and he was half-tempted to leave it on the doorstep and hope they’d get the message.

That is, assuming they were all still in there. His gut twisted unpleasantly at the thought that some of them had left out of fear. That he’d forced them to leave Raivis behind on his own.

He was starting to lose hope, and his nerve, when the door clicked and creaked open, making him jump. Yellow-green eyes peered back out at him, and he managed a wobbly smile.

“Uh, heya,” he said, raising a hand. “How you guys been?”

Toris pulled the door open wider, looking surprised and bemused.

“We’re, ah… we’re doing fine,” he said, Feliks’s face popping out from behind the door.

“Oh. Okay, great, that’s good.”

The door pushed open further and Eduard peered out, brows furrowed, Raivis floating behind his shoulder.

“We weren’t really expecting to see you again so soon,” he said. “Or, at all, for that matter.”

Alfred laughed nervously, swinging his arms. “Yeah, sorry for dropping by unannounced. I just, uhm, I wanted to give you this.” He reached into the bag and pulled out a dark brown box with a gold ribbon, holding it out with an awkward smile. “You know, as thanks.”

Toris took the box from him, cautiously, and examined it. “What is it?”

“Chocolates,” Alfred explained. “I bought a box for the two who drove me to the hospital, and, well, I thought I should get you some too.” He shrugged, and pushed his hands into his pockets. “‘Cause, well, I mean, you guys took real good care of me that night, and-” He swallowed nervously, looking at his shoes. “And I didn’t want you left thinking I was gonna do something else stupid. I-I overheard what you were saying, about me blabbing, and, I want you to know I won’t do that. I owe it to you guys not to, and, I hated to think about you all just sitting here scared, waiting for that to happen. Or, worse, leaving and getting split up.”

Shoulders hunched, he lifted his eyes again and found all four of them still watching him, all looking surprised and a little nonplussed. 

Raivis broke the silence with a quiet, uncomfortable laugh. “That’s very kind of you, b-but, uhm, I can’t eat.”

“Me neither,” Eduard added. “Unless it’s liquid, my stomach can’t handle it.”

“And chocolate’s not very safe for canines,” Toris said, biting his lip.

Alfred blinked, mouth going slack, and he buried his face in his hands with a groan. “Godammit, I didn’t even think of any of that… Shit, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” Toris said quickly, smiling gently when Alfred looked up. “It’s a very nice gesture, really.”

“And I can tell you, we all _really_ appreciate that you’ve kept us secret,” Eduard added. “That means more to us than chocolate.”

“Plus I can still eat these no problem,” Feliks grinned, taking the box from Toris, who rolled his eyes with an amused snort. “I’ll enjoy them for everyone!”

Alfred let out a surprised laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay… Good, I’m glad.”

Raivis drifted forward, a small smile on his face, and gestured the door to open wider. “Alfred, um, it must have been a long walk here in the cold. Did you, maybe, want to come in for a while? It’d be nice to sit and talk like, well, normal people.”

Despite the boarded windows, the peeling paint, and the creaking wood, the old house looked warm and inviting on the inside. Alfred could see candles lit on just about every surface available, bathing the foyer in warm, orange light, mixing with the silvery moonlight that filtered through the boards on the windows. He could see the glow of the fireplace in the kitchen through the doorway, and caught a whiff of hot coffee of all things. This weird little patchwork family of monsters was watching him, keeping the door wide open, patient and welcoming

“Yeah,” he said, a warm smile creeping up his face. “You know what, yeah, that sounds great.”

They were smiling too as he stepped inside, gently closing the door behind him, leaving the Gerhardt mansion’s windows glowing warmly in the cold, snowy gloom.


End file.
